Then and Now..

Time takes toll on all friendships; even the best ones fail to endure its test. Chats get occasional; phone calls, few and far between; get-togethers, rare. They say you should accept the best times of your life as nice, little, finite chapters and just move on.  Can’t be helped - people disperse; but memories are locked in for ever.. Once in a while, it’s nice to open that box, to reminisce and ponder over paths these lives take.

Ten years is a long long time.. People transform – in appearance and outlook (but this journey down the memory lane would have me believe the very core of the person still remains the same). So here goes a very subjective (and judgemental – can’t help) then-and-now view of a bunch of crazy friends I made during the best two years of my life.

Anish

Then: A stereotypical nerd. Razor sharp wit and memory often practiced to the point of exhaustion and annoyance of everybody around..  

Now: Still all those things; plus the only reason I am aware of Taher-Shahs and Dhinchak-Poojas [sic] of the world.

Gaurav

Then: A definition of laid back, easygoing, happy-go-lucky. A thorough gentleman. I am yet to meet a soul who was intentionally hurt by this guy.

Now: (From where I see..) could not have married a more similar person. I have a feeling they might score perfect on those compatibility tests. My only complaint with him is that he never has time to meet! (Can’t believe I haven’t yet seen his daughter.)

Manasi

Then: My most favorite room-mate (that’s saying a lot.. and she knows it!). A typical first bencher. Always in a hurry to do something, get somewhere. Watching those Federer-Nadal matches in Bharani hostel’s TV room with her are some of my fondest memories from IISc days.

Now: A person who busts the myth of you-cannot-do-it-all. And doing it all also includes running around Tanmay, her 4-year old son! BTW, I am still a bit a(u)nt-sy that she did not take my suggestion for his name. You have to agree with me on this - Amol+Manasi = Aman would have been (admittedly a bit Brangelina style, but) so perfect!

Mukta

Then: A madcap. Her definition of “wild” was eating bhuttas (roasted corn) on the streets of Malleshwaram. (That reminds me-) A girl with erratic, whimsical and worrisome diet and sleep patterns. On a more selfish note, a person I absolutely needed to meet. There is a lot to be grateful for here that’s hard to put into words - she had an impact on me in ways that I cannot possibly ever recognize or acknowledge.  

Now: I am hoping Aditya has managed to make her diet regime more humane. After years of professional commitments forcing them to juggle between continents, they finally seem to have (somewhat) settled in Oxford. Last time we met, I told her she is getting ever wiser and wiser (except that idea of seriously considering life-long post-doc). All in all, a major envy alert!

Onkar

Then: The chosen one to have a face like Danielle Radcliffe. He is one of those people you would want to strike an argument with, just for the fun of it. Our fights about him terming Nadal as the GOAT were legendary and brutal.

Now: No longer the chosen one - as male-pattern baldness seems to be catching up fast on him ;). And I am guessing Samta is using the argumentative side of hers to her most amusement. Also, how surreal that the GOAT part is still unsettled. Or is it?

Pallavi

Then: A sweetheart. A poster-girl of ideal daughter, sister, friend (and all such other titles you can think of). This is the kind that usually irks me a little because I can’t stand it when others take advantage of them.

Now: Still a sweetheart, who now conscientiously decides to be well-behaved. I like this version of hers even better.

Prajakta:

Then: Rumor has it that she made grey sweaters (in)famous on campus. For years, I have been planning to sit her down and explain how she is a model example of what they call – a fundamental attribution error. Or how aptitude is nothing without attitude (and all those similar things..)

Now: She continues to bear the brunt of my worst versions just because of (what I think is) sheer indiscipline and laziness. Enough of all that, though. Here comes the best part – in spite of having seen me play badminton, swim and dance (and some of it in 15kg heavier version of me), she thinks I have a “swag” about me. Just for that legendary comment, she warrants my life-long unconditional love. Not kidding, I hope she knows I was and will always be sincerely rooting for her. 

Pushkaraj

Then: A classic case of spending energy and talent in trivial pursuits, for the most part. A compiler of comprehensive database of all girls around campus. As a follow-up, also one of the pioneers of transforming Marathi Mandal in a marriage bureau.

Now: Another person on list of people-who-get-onto-my-nerves. Don’t even get me started. Yesterday, he interrogated me on effectiveness of my Aloe Vera gel, almost gave me a lesson on selection of right kadhai type (I promptly changed it) and told me that iPad user experience is below par. I cannot fathom how Pallavi manages to stand him 24x7. (BTW, what a lucky ******* to have patao-ed her!). On a more respectable note, so happy that both of them have completed their PhDs and ready to move abroad to do their post-docs. (Lately, I have this realization that I am going to feel truly alone once they do so.) I know deep down that I will miss them the most.

Ravi

Then: Weirdly enough (because I still don’t completely understand why exactly we got along so well), my closest confidant through the years. My go-to sounding board. With his in-your-face honesty and sarcasm, at times, he gave me an impression that he probably understood me better than I understood myself. [Convenient-slip-in-alert:] He once told me I am like a coconut – hard on the outside but all soft and mushy inside. That was an one-off thing, though. I mostly just hated it when he was right.

Now: A little birdie told me one of the things worrying him (I know Juthika is no part of this) the most these days is how to avoid his friends from taking temporary shelter at their place in bay area. (I am just going to ignore this detail in my next trip) Here’s hoping we get to catch up sometime soon!

Swati

Then: First things first- I have recently been informed that outsiders regarded her as the beauty queen of Marathi Mandal! A girl with heart on her sleeve. I mean, come on, she liked Mysore the second we stepped out of the bus. Best part- she was the only other person who knew all old Hindi and Marathi songs by heart and would have me ruin them with her. All in all, though, I gave her some really tough time with all my incessant jibes and japes.

Now:  Where is this girl?  The last memory I have of her is our big showdown on which movie is better – Ram-Leela or Hasee Toh Phasee. I concede a movie date is not negotiable anymore. But surely, we could just meet at a coffee shop (that sells only one type of it).

Vinay

Then: My partner-in-crime in convincing people to get out for trips and treks.  Apart from being unfairly talented, he had this aura of calm and peace around himself – a combination so rare.  Unarguably the person who managed to call me “Mita” the best way.

Now: Busy, busy, busy. I am told he has lately spent more time with his lab-monkeys than with humans. Anyway, amongst whatever humans he is hanging around with, I am certain he is the most admired and loved. Well, I am guessing the inner-peace situation must have gone for a toss since Prajakta came around.

Vishal

Then: He could talk to anybody and everybody, and anybody and everybody (read, mostly girls) wanted to talk anything and everything with him. Which also meant he was the glue holding the group together – I will give him that;  but I honestly don’t know why we let him boss around so much. E.g. Not that he was a typical Mumbaikar in any definition of the word, but for some reason he cracked up way too many jokes on me being a small-town (actually his exact word was “village”) girl. (For the record, Satara is a major district place and may even get a Maha-Nagar-Palika soon! True story.). Seriously - my laptop, my accent, my looks, nothing was spared... So this is my time to expose him: Apparently, his mother once asked him not to open a new 100gm carton of Amul butter and manage with the current one; but he would hear none of it. Aunty then warned him that if he opens the new carton, he will have to eat all of the butter. This guy - he had the entire thing sandwiched in two slices of bread. Eww! (Not that it’s needed; but to put it in perspective,) he directly consumed the amount of butter in five minutes, that I may not have consumed in last five years! The day I heard this incident, I made a note to myself not to (for the lack of better phrase) take any panga with this guy.

Now: Still a glue that manages to get people together. I don’t have a first-hand account of his interest in Australians and vice-versa, yet. The tables have turned a little bit - I am more on the offensive side and he is more on the sensitive side. I am not sure if I completely like it that way, though. 

Cheers, guys and gals! Here's to a decade of friendship..

A Theory for Everything

They say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But then they also say if you aren’t moving forward, then you are moving backward.

If all good things come to those who wait, what do they mean by time and tide waiting for none?

If birds of a feather flock together, how is it that opposites attract?

If out of sight means out of mind, how does absence make the heart grow fonder?

If action speaks louder than words, how, if I may ask, is pen mightier than the sword?

Is more, really the merrier or do too many cooks spoil the broth?

Proverbs are these time-tested nuggets of theories passed down through generations. Turns out there is one to suit every occasion - to justify everything and anything. Is it surprising, at all then, that proverbial wisdom contradicts itself so much?

And what do they normally say when these theories don’t work?

· The Context argument: The situational dispositions are to blame. This is the classic asterisk of “T & C apply”. The problem is, situational factors are often way too many and mostly unknown, so what good are the rules anyway?

·  The Exception argument*: Exceptions only prove the rule. WHAT? HOW?

· The Moderation argument*: Don’t go to extremes while adopting rules but maintain a balance -- like those boon-or-bane essays in high-school that always used to end by recommending "middle-ground" and "thoughtfulness".

Here's the thing: man’s unrelenting search for meaning and explanation has meant survival, sophistication and splendid, splendid progress. However, some argue we have taken it a bit too far, with all our excessive self-assurance. The not-so-intelligent application of abstract reasoning, whether inductive (establishing generic rules from specific observations) or deductive (exploiting general theories to get to specific conclusions) has led to us being "narrow-minded slaves of logic".

The problem is that we often try to attach a sense of universality and timelessness to the conventionally acquired wisdom. Karl Popper, a prominent philosopher, relied on falsifiability of theories – he propounded that all theories have a permanent sense of uncertainty and should be considered only "tentatively" true. Any number of positive evidences do not make the theory permanently true whereas a single negative evidence is decisive and implies that a new theory is needed for explanation of the phenomenon. This is a paradigm shift; more like turning traditional idea about knowledge on its head - (this might be a poor example, but) imagine a legal system that never completely acquits the defendant and names the person only tentatively innocent for all his life.

Are we doomed then? Are we to understand it’s all always going to be ambiguous? Is Popper suggesting we can't completely anticipate/explain things and so must resign our quest of knowledge to this meaninglessness? 

Quite the opposite, actually. 

There's a fine line between skepticism and gullibility and that's ideally where you want to be. I guess what he is saying is -

It’s less about knowing, and more about learning.

Less about believing, more about seeking.

Less about reaching, more about exploring.

Less about the destination, more about the journey.

PS:

*Nassim Nicholas  Taleb's (henceforth referred to as NNT) “The Black Swan” is the most influential non-fiction book I have ever read. As opposed to conventional wisdom that recommends ignoring exceptions, removing outliers and fitting “normal” “models”, NNT stresses the importance of studying rare events and fat-tailed distributions for a broader and deeper long-term understanding. (Actually, this whole area of complex systems, chaos and nonlinear dynamics seems very very relevant across all domains and theories). NNT, in fact, advocates dealing in extremes for achieving optimal results. (Truth be told, Mathematics throws me off a little bit lately, what I understand is that the best thing for me is to alternate between Quattro Formaggi Burst and fasting ;)). Anyway, it's only fitting that people either completely adore or loathe his school of thought. :)

Incredible !ndia

Apparently, Priyanka Chopra is lobbying hard for the role of brand ambassador of the Incredible !ndia campaign. I would doubt authenticity of anything that comes on Zoom TV, but I was genuinely pleased at some level. Don’t get me wrong -- we are all proud Indians; but it’s not very often you get to hear of people going out of their way to associate themselves with brand India. (Slightly besides the point -- but from what I hear, it's sort of a symbiotic equation, the person probably gains as much in terms of popularity from being the face of the campaign, if not more.)

And is it high time brand India is vindicated! I am not delusional and I don't deny that things (standards of living, infrastructure to name a couple) need improvement -- but what needs to be revamped manifolds is the image of India that has been projected for decades. -- the stereotype perpetuated by activists, NGOs, film-makers, writers (and Indians might actually be more guilty of this than foreigners). I mean, for God's sake, thousands don't die of hunger, or of leprosy (or of anything, really!) on pavements along streets of Kolkata... Neither is half of Mumbai occupied by slums. Need I go on?

Let’s specifically consider the context of tourism in India. Now, I can’t claim to be much of a traveler and USA is the only other country I have been to (so naturally she has to bear all the brunt of comparison :) ). And so what, if you aren’t going to give me enough credit for being objective about all this -- but as much as I was impressed by architectural gems that skyscrapers of Manhattan are; I was even more blown away by beautiful temples of Dwaraka and Somnath (may be it has got to do with my preference for details over scale)... Bridges are my most favorite man-made structures and you possibly don’t get more iconic than Golden Gate or Brooklyn in that department, but Howrah just convincingly beat them on “personality” (especially if you are into taking long walks)! Where do you think I would choose to go back  – meadows of central park or idyllic tea plantations of Munnar? Rock Creek Park in all its glorious wilderness or coconut orchards along western coast? Very honestly, it would be great to experience the new year’s eve at jam-packed Times’ Square, but boy, do I wish I get to experience company of millions chanting at Kumbhamela or (Jagannath Puri's) Rath yatra at least once in this lifetime! 

I understand it’s unfair to continue along those lines -  to compare these different experiences; but the point I am trying to get across is that there is just so much India has to offer. India has things so unique and diverse than those cliches of colors and spirituality -- Magnificent Humayun's Tomb. Majestic Red Fort. Marvelous Mysore Palace. Gorgeous Hawa Mahal. Imposing Stupas of Sarnath. Tranquil Belur Math. Pristine Victoria Memorial... (Well, I have earned my fair share of bragging rights, you see!). Truly and frankly, we don’t seem to be doing a good job of promoting tourism for India. Just slogans and ads and posters aren't enough. It has to get into our DNA at a much more fundamental and subliminal level. Like that guide accompanying us on night tour of Washington DC, who would go on and on about FDR and Eleanor, about JFK and Jackie. It mattered not that it was freezing cold as we stood by the memorial – “Lincoln is my man” was argued with such conviction and passion - almost as if the guy personally knew him from previous birth! Freedom Trail tour in Boston is done with such flamboyance, it feels like a broadway show with colonial times back on the streets! Contrast that to our guide in Jaipur who won’t stop talking about locations at spectacular Amber Palace with references to shooting of Bollywood movies! 

How I wish we had a formal observation deck that offers aerial view of Queen’s necklace and Worli Sea-link somewhere in Mumbai -- because trust me, the view of New York City from Empire State building is truly breathtaking and not at all overrated! In Capitol, you get to watch a dazzling A/V that showcases America and her history -- I could think of at least five places in India where something like this makes perfect sense -- but only similar experience I recall is watching a brilliant video in Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar. I am not into spirituality much, but even with the unique experiences on offer – whether it’s aarti at Ganga ghats or dips in triveni sangam at Prayag, holy cities of Varanasi and Allahabad are big-time let-downs and need to be taken back to the drawing board if they are to be world-class tourist attractions. I could have spent all ten days I had in DC around National Mall  going through those incredible museums.. and a weekend was nowhere near enough to go through MET in NYC. And in comparison, museums at world heritage sites across India feel so under-stated and under-funded. Why can’t we take a more academic and methodical approach to celebrate our culture, art and history?

Of all the campaigns going around, I sincerely want this one to succeed the most. And though I believe that externally oriented portrayal of India needs a makeover, I do not think wooing foreigners should necessarily be the major focus here. An aspirational upper middle class emerging in today’s India is much more easily approachable target audience that could help prosper and in turn further evangelize brand India. Sometimes we seem to forget -- for one sixth of the world's population, India is already the greatest country on earth.. And why not -- tell me one other place where love gets as “wonder"ful as this:

If..

If you can lose your head as all around you  

    Are losing theirs and jamming in on you,  

If you can t(h)rust the wheel when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their cussing too;  

If you can tailgate and not be tired by "corner-cutting"

    Or being honked about, indulge in a quick brawl,

Or being hated, don’t ever give way to those who're following

    And yet don’t look too rude, nor talk too foul:

If you can be reckless—and not make traffic lights your master,

    If you can dodge potholes —and not make sticking-to-lanes your aim;  

If you can ignore indicators and zebra crossings

    And treat those two distractors just the same;   

If you can bear to see lorries sauntering

    And avoid speed-breakers created as traps for fools,

Or watch footpaths being encroached, dividers being broken,

    And stoop lower to disregard all rules:

If you can finally find enough space to squeeze-in

    And risk it on one unpredictable sharp turn of the city-bus,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And just swear a word or two about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To take the unauthorized U-turn well before traffic police are gone,  

And so don't hold on when they confront you

    Just wear your mischievous smile :), wink ;) and speed on..

If you can hustle with other cars with pedal on the metal

    Or bustle with bikes — nor mind as those mirrors touch,

If neither auto-drivers nor taxi-drivers can hurt you,

    If men in your car count on you, but none too much;

If you can utilize that rare empty stretch

    at hundred kmph worth of distance run,  

Coz yours is the road and everything that’s on it,  

    And—which is more—you’ll be home, my son!

Advisory Creeps..

It must have been Australian Open 2016. As players were warming up with their rallies and the camera panned on Federer’s box, the commentator argued if Ivan Ljubicic has the easiest job in the world. "Does Ivan", he said, "have anything to do as coach after all, when it’s The Great Roger Federer as his student?"

At one of these nondescript conferences I attended last year, I got into an informal discussion with students from prestigious engineering colleges of Bengaluru.. I am totally amazed by the mind-boggling clarity kids from today’s metros have, apart from that unmistakable street-smart quality. One of them came to me later and said: “I feel so inspired just talking to you. Could you please give me some career advice?” My very first instinct was to slap her. NOT kidding.

A couple of months ago, I was summoned to mediate an argument between a married couple. I am, normally, perfectly capable of a flat-out, in-your-face refusal in such matters but the situation came across as quite grim. Now, asking me relationship/marriage advice is like asking sex advice to a virgin. But for some weird reason best known to them, they trusted my ability to resolve the conflict in an unbiased manner. Did I say “resolve"? Because this wasn’t my first time doing such thing and I knew what I was signing up for.. These matters typically don’t have a beginning or an end. I was called up just after an early dinner and must have been there till wee hours of the morning.. But as I was sitting there, trying to hear out both sides, I felt like seasons changed outside the window. There were moments of deafening cries, shouts and even more deafening silences.. In the heat of those moments, things were said, that were not meant. And everything just kept getting worse and worse. Where/why/how it began had become irrelevant few minutes into the fight -  all graveyards of all towns around the world were dug - repeatedly.
So many issues started coming to the fore, I lost track of how to reconcile and process this incomplete and asymmetric information. I say so — because (though getting into too many specifics would be wrong) as it turns out, the wife is a trained lawyer - particularly fierce, emotionally charged, brutally argumentative, also gifted with extraordinary memory and an innate ability to attend to minutest of details.. and the husband - an awkward, intuitive, shy, easy-going software engineer (a lot more to be read between just those two words: boring and easily bored, lazy.. you know this list.). It was quite a struggle to navigate his frame of mind and understand his side in the matter and then it was about connecting too many dots to make it a consistent, sensible view. And did I mention that — all this while, it all just felt WRONG on so many levels. I had no right to be there, in the first place. The wife definitely had a “case” but then - she is a closer friend of mine and more mature of the two. I knew I was being harsh on her while giving out my.. well, so-called "advice".

I couldn’t easily come to terms with what I did. I was a sleep-deprived zombie for the next few days.

Quite clearly, then -- Gone are my manipulative (yet coming from a genuine and caring place) ways of proactively discouraging people from inviting what seemed like a disaster for them.  Not that I don’t care about near and dear ones anymore. I guess I must just be growing up from those days of blurting out unsolicited opinions with an easy air of overconfidence.

These days, on the contrary, I prefer the cozy warmth of my shell. But then people force me to come out of hibernation in an advisory capacity. And then it’s just plain grueling -- I doubt if I am not doing enough or doing too much. I wonder if I am helping the subjects involved or unknowingly harming them. If it all works out, I don’t feel like the credit belongs to me but if it doesn’t, the blame somehow feels all mine. I am constantly second-guessing myself and so an imposed responsibility with an unfounded and powerful trust like this is just a bit too burdensome. Call me selfish all you want, but taking part in a battle that isn’t yours is taxing, to say the least. You are pretty much handicapped and yet expected to pull off a win. I don’t know how people do it.

So, as he sits in that player’s box, Ivan would be thinking if he could, rather, enter the arena and face Djokovic all by himself.
My “advice" to him, you ask?: "Take up commentating."
Now, there, in fact, we have a real contender for the easiest job in the world.

By Miss Take..

Read an article a few months ago. I think it was Deccan Herald (has been my favourite for an uncharacteristically long time now). Apparently, some schools in UK have decided to ban erasers in classrooms, deeming them “Instruments of the devil". That's because they want students to own their mistakes and correct them. Not hide them or shy away from them!

Have you watched this movie called “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”? (Uff! What are you doing, reading this stupid blog?!) I will take the liberty of spoiling it for you (the way it suits my narrative): There's this couple, madly in love with each other, they get together..  Reality hits: things don't work out; they decide to go their separate ways. But it’s all so tempestuous they just can't move on. Both of them undergo a procedure to artificially erase each other from memory.. And as it eventually turns out, they fall in love with each other all over again.

I am often guilty of relishing in textbook romance but the claim here is not surrender-to-your-destiny or meant-to-be-will-be or everything-happens-for-a-reason. I would think most of us would strongly, firmly advocate against divine intervention. So let’s, at least for an argument’s sake, go with — you made/let things happen. When you have different outcomes than what you wished for — with benefit of hindsight and a supposedly uncluttered brain, it’s easy to objectify, internalize and see an irrational, fallible self in your past. It’s recommended to acknowledge your mistakes and derive some insight, learning and if possible, even a bit of detached amusement.

The problem is: somewhere in the process, we get into this vicious phase of self-deprecation, anguish, and repentance. Looking back at things, we tend to judge our actions alone but we lose perspective a little bit. We forget the contexts in which we chose the actions.  Imagine yourself caught in a Tsunami struggling to find your way off the shore and then later, sitting on clean banks looking over serene, turquoise waters and tell me your "perspectives" are the same, both literally (Engineering-Graphics-101 sense :P) and figuratively! My take is: if you were to transport yourself back to the exact same situation, the script is most likely to replay itself; and all this -- not attributing to any other exogenous factor, but to your own self.

It could not, should not, would not have been any different.

So, here’s to no regrets. Here’s to not being too hard on yourself. 
But most importantly, here’s a lame justification for all your mistakes. :)

Frère Jacques..

You tend to appreciate anything after bearing with weeks of American TV channels, which, admittedly, can get exquisitely brilliant but run utter load of crap for 95% of the time. (Alright, you have Netflix, we get it!) Let me not even get started on the endorsements. They are so brain-dead and unimaginative; half of them feel like high-school skits and have absolutely no entertainment value.. And the informative ones are just completely beyond me: I mean, why have pharmaceutical ads that spend more time making serious disclaims than claims?

That could clearly be another post.. Anyhow, effectively, to-and-fro plane journey is often the best entertainment you get to have on the trip. And something that strikes a chord or touches your raw nerves is an instant hit! Like this particular ad:

[Video Courtesy: https://www.behance.net/gallery/29529685/Take-a-tour-through-the-Museum-of-Procrastination]

Long ago, Calvin told us to enjoy the deadlines just whooshing by. Come to think of it, however, it’s so much better when others set deadlines for you.. I mean, if my experience is anything to go by -- in academic life, you would either copy the assignment from your first-bencher buddy or just make something up between 11th and 12th hour. And in professional life, you seem to.. well, manage.

What this ad really talks about is the other kind of procrastination. The one that pertains to not meeting deadlines and goals of your own. Lack of persistent self-motivation is nothing short of a life-crisis!

Fortunately (or unfortunately), though, this does not seem to have affected the indomitable (and shameless) spirit of me from creating more goals. :P

So, while innumerable unread books, a kindle, sketchbooks, canvases, charcoals, watercolors, poster-colors, tennis racquet, badminton racquets, TT racquets, inline skates, a yoga mat, swimming costumes, a chess-board, a camera (A side tip: Never get frazzled by your baby sister and let her spoil your Thanksgivings door-bursting experience if she forbids you from taking that DSLR+lens combo), a harmonica, a calligraphy kit seem to be gathering layers of dust — I think it’s time for me to order a.... Convection Microwave. ;)

Allow me to put forth my case. Let me start by saying: Honesty is the best policy; and modesty, the worst. So if - a) hard-core South Indians can’t stop praising Chutney and Sambar by yours truly and b) my mom is not the only one to go gaga over my knife skills (It’s got nothing to do with motherly affection… just that she wants me to chop every single thing when I am around. Well, who’s complaining? Chopping to sub-centimeter precision is just so therapeutic!) and so on.. I think I deserve this plunge to get into a new phase of culinary adventures.. I mean, it would be just stupid to wait for an Italian to appreciate my Pasta or a Thai to admire my Green Curry! ;)

2016 might just be the year of baking for me. I can TOTALLY feel it. :P It’s still January and making resolutions never gets old-fashioned. I see you mocking me already! You know what, I am SO going to do it.. Julie-&-Julia style! :)