A Sweet Sweet 16!

If you know me, you know that I'm not the partying kind. I'm not your typical teenager, who's glued onto her phone or is too rebellious (note the use of the word 'too'!) just for the sake of it. One of the most shocking things my friends find about me is that I love spending time with my parents (which is probably the reason why I love home-schooling).

I had my sweet 16 on Tuesday, and I'd like to write about it.

My best friends came over on Monday night. Anandini and Mitali. I think they're friends I'll never forget. I've known them for five or six years, and we're like sisters. I've spent most of my birthdays with only those two and we have the best time ever!

I think I'll take this opportunity to introduce them here.

I've known Mitali since the fifth grade. She's a bubbly person who is your typical teenager. You can talk all your crap about other people with her and you know she'll give you an ear, no matter how much you rattle on. (If fact, the other day, she stood in front of Anandini and me and said, 'Okay, who's going to start the bitching?' Quite a girl, isn't she?) She's a very social person, and loves talking. What I love about Mitali is her positive outlook towards life. She's make the most out of any situation.

I've known Anandini since the 7th. We instantly became best friends. Until the 9th (Anandini was in Sloka uptil then) Anandini was a pretty 'rowdy' girl. But she changed completely after coming to our school (The Integral School). Her personality now and then has drastic differences. I love her because she's passionate about so many things. She's the person I can have serious talks with, about education, learning, feelings. We can have deep conversations, and end them on a light note, without spoiling the moment.

Well, those are my best friends. Amazing people, both of them.

But to get on with my sweet sweet 16.

We went into the gym and ran 2 kilometres as Anandini said she was stuffed to the throat from the hogging she did the previous day. We later did these really cool ab exercises Mitali suggested, and work up a massive appetite for that wonderful dinner Mama had made.

Paalak rice and paneer. Simple, but it was so delicious!!

We went for a walk downstairs after dinner, and spent it in our favourite way - complaining about all the stuff going on in our lives. Mitali always has something to complain about, Anandini most of the time, and me a little lesser. But it's funny; now that I have no social life, I have nothing to complain about. Apart from some petty issues that I tried to feel bad about, there was nothing. I'm leading a happy, content life now, with not a care in the world. That was my gift to myself on my sweet 16th.

While walking back home, we started talking about math (HOW?). I realized that Anandini and Mitali had the same misconception I had 3 years ago, about quantities changing signs when they moved to the other side of the equation. We spent half-an-hour sorting that out. I still remember how I understood the thing about quantities and changing signs. It was about 3 months before I left Sloka along with Abha, Haritha and a few others. It was Abha's birthday and Dada had come to pick me up. While we were finishing up, Dada and Abha's dad started having a very heated discussion about maths in school (both criticizing it very badly). It was then that Abha's dad started talking about these quantities and signs so heatedly and it stuck in my head forever.

Anyways, the highlight of the day's coming up. We cut a cake at 12!!! I've never done that before and I was so excited!! It was amazing, because they sang happy birthday for me, Varun took a video of the whole thing, and the cake... The cake was so so delicious!!

Right after the cake cutting, Anandini and Mitali disappeared. At first I was annoyed. I turned 16 like two and a half minutes ago, and the run upstairs? How insensitive is that? That feeling lasted for about a second. It struck me - maybe they'd gotten me something for my birthday!! I felt so happy, because even though I told them not to bring anything, they had!! That feeling too didn;t last for a very long time. They got down Anandini's laptop, and I thought great, another slideshow... I'm embarrassed at thinking like that, because a lot of effort goes into making but, but that's what we got Mitali and Anandini on their respective birthdays, and I didn't want the same thing.

I put on and surprised and anticipating look for their sake, and approached the laptop as they excitedly called me forward.

They began the video. It started with a picture of saying 'To be most beautiful girl'. I said to myself, 'Okay, watch it with an open mind'. But then it wasn't pictures that followed. It was a video of Anandini and Mitali, the latter sitting with a guitar. I wasn't anticipating this at all! And then they started singing. It was so so beautiful. It almost brought me to tears. They were singing a song for me!! My best friends were literally the best friends in the world!! I hugged and kissed them both, blinking back tears. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it was. It was amazing.

We spent the rest of the night talking, and fell asleep at 3:00am.

In the morning, I had my special breakfast that I had asked off Mama. Pork Sausages, Baked Mashed Potato, Scrambled eggs and toast. YUM YUM!! I feasted. Dada came home around 9:00. He'd taken an early flight to be with me on my birthday. Don't a have an enviously sweet family?

I dressed in that beautiful special top I bought for my birthday. A blue lace spaghetti with a second shirt of pale blue wide embroidery on top. I know I shouldn't be saying this, but I knew I looked lovely.

We left home in a hurry to catch Pk, the Aamir Khan film I was dying to watch. It turned out to be brilliant. 20 years later, When I read this post and read the name PK, I bet I'll watch that film again.
Aamir Khan is brilliant.

We ended the birthday with a lunch at the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that amazing Italian place. We at as much as we could, and ordered all but one of the desserts!! ANyways, that's where my birthday ended with my friends.

But birthdays go on till the day ends, doesn't it?

We got home and I went to give Chintan some birthday cake. She repeatedly told me how beautiful a was looking, which made me feel so good. That's the thing about Chintan. She makes you feel good about yourself.

Back home, Mama asked me to come down after I changed out of my fancy clothes. A big box was waiting for me. They'd got me a present!! I had told them repeatedly NOT to get me anything (last time, the present they got me just depressed me), and yet they had!!

I impatiently opened it, hoping it wasn't anything lame, like last time. After I opened it, I believed it to be the farthest thing from lame! They had gotten me an artisan bread maker!! I was jumping with excitement! It was so so so cool! It looked so posh, with a touch screen to control it, and it looked just perfect! Trust Dada to get the perfect stuff!!

Later that evening, I found a gift waiting for me from Chintan. She had made me Double-Ka-Meetha, which she excels in making. And Ayaan had made me a card. It was such and inviting gift, and the Double-Ka-Meetha was delicious!

We ended the day with Dada's signature mutton pulao, which, as usual was heavenly.

So all in all, I have a very sweet sweet 16. 

Running - A way of life.

My dad's a runner. For some of you, that may be a bizarre thing to be. You may be thinking - "So what the deal? He runs?" Well yes, he runs. He doesn't run for a living, nor does he run just to stay fit. No, he runs because for him, running is a way of life. Running is an integral part of his life. And I think that's beautiful.

Well, the running bug has bitten all of us. We're now a family that runs. Including Mama!! We've done 10Ks, 7Ks, and 5Ks to date!! 

Well, Dada's in a completely different league altogether. He's been running half-marathons for above ten years, and started running marathons last year. In the last 5 months, he's done 5 marathons, 1 duathlon, and 2 Brevets. Mindbogglingly crazy, but what do I say? :)

But then, Dada doesn't stop there, does he. He's started a running group!! We live really far from the city, so we can't really attend the Hyderabad Runners' regular training program. Anyways, he started a group. And it's going very very well!! Over the last 3 weeks, we've got together 10-12 regularly attending people! (Our community is quite small, so this is a large group of runners). We meet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:30 in morning (Yep, 5:30am. If you want to be a runner, you have to sacrifice late nights and retire by 9:30pm). 

Well this is our routine: 

Mondays: Meet at 5:30am for Interval Training. Interval training goes kind of like this: You pick a distance you're comfortable with, say 100m, 200m, or 400m. We've picked 200m, since all of us are beginning with a couple of 10Ks to our names. The idea is, you run this distance till you are very breathless, and then the same distance, you do a slow jog or walk to regain your breath. Keep increasing the distance and the number of times you repeat this exercise. You do this as this helps your body store in more oxygen. You are getting your body used to being breathless, so it helps the body learn to store more energy (oxygen). This also helps increase your running pace (who doesn't want to finish each run with a new personal best?)

As of now, we're doing 8 repeats of 200m Interval Training. Very exhausting, but so worth it. I can already feel my pace increasing!! 

Wednesdays: Meet at 5:30 for Tempo Run. Tempo run is a run that helps you increase you pace. You start of jogging very slow, and gradually increase your speed. In the middle of the run, you should be running at your fastest speed. You them gradually slow down towards the end. As of now, we're doing 5 or 6 kilometer Tempo Runs. 

Fridays: Meet at 5:30 for Long Run. Long Run, as the name suggests, is a long run. If you've done a 10K, and you're aiming for 21K (half-marathon), you start of running 10Ks and every week add a kilometer or two. (I'm not doing a 21K, because Dada says for a 16 year old it is physically too demanding, so I've decided to stick with the good old 10Ks.) 

Stretches: What I haven't mentioned is that before and after every session, we do stretches. Dada says stretches are one of the most important things to do. Warming up and cooling down your muscles are very important, and without these, you become very injury prone. At the beginning, we do stretches to increase blood flow to the muscles, and at the end of the run, we do them to relax our muscles.

Well, so that's our life now. Running. And it's a wonderful life :)