The Chic Life : Episode II - Me Loves This Game

Well not very much, but I do like the game (it should be sport actually) a lot. For those people still in the dark, "I love this game" is the tag line of NBA. They also use this ultra cool quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson in their ads: "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail".

For the 100th time, I miss life in India a lot; but there are some compensations America has to offer. Like, for the 101th time, ballroom and ice skating. A close third, fourth, fifth and sixth are NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA celebrating American football, ice hockey, baseball and basketball respectively.

Well even if you are not much of a sports fan, once the playoffs begin, the temptation becomes too hard to resist. I tuned into ESPN to watch the first few minutes of the Suns vs Lakers' sixth playoff game. It was a must win for the Suns or else they are out of the league. Well there were six seconds and needed three points to tie or go home. You guessed it Tim Thomas shot a three pointer.

They won the next game to come back from a 3-2 lag, to beat the lakers to the Western conference semi finals. Now they have the honor of being the first NBA team that I am a fan of. Not a mean achievement considering, when it comes to me, I am all! And Steve Nash, the two time MVP of NBA, becomes the first God representing basketball. He joins the likes of Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Roger Fedrer etc. in my personal and customized religion, which is an off-shoot of Hinduism.

That inspired me and the rest of the Chicago holiday was shooting baskets. My uncle has this mini basketball hoop installed in his garage. Thats good, but there are no ppl around; now how do I play? An idea struck. Me vs. me! I keep shooting, if I get three-in in a row, the good-me get a point, if I get three-out in a row, the bad-me gets a point. Like I said when it comes to me, its all about me! So me and me played some six games. Good-me won all of them, though two of them were pretty close 10-9, the rest were no contest.

It is a mile stone in my mini basket ball career. Phew! That's the silliest thing you have ever heard? Yeah me too. The moment when my in-probability goes higher than 50%. Hoping to repeat this tremendous success with the regular basketball also. Now that we are speaking in probabilese, the chances of my reaching that milestone are a modest 10%! Lets see if the game loves Me. :-)

The Chic Life: Episode I - In Love, It's ok to Fall

Well it is one of those childish titles. All I mean to do is blog about my four to five days in Chicago. There are only a couple of things I will write about . This is the first one; the second will be about basketball.

I went Ice skating. Well I came to Chicago promising myself that I will go to ice skating every other day. It was not a promise well kept. I had my limitations, transportation, transportation and transportation being the three major ones. It was over come, I just had to cycle myself across eight kms of suburban Chicago to reach the skating center. It was a good warm up exercise. I went in what are called public skating hours. I had to cycle back too, obviously.

This was my second time in the rink. The first time I went to a rink was in Atlanta, a much warmer (less icier) city on a Friday night, where as now it is in Chicago, where there are rinks every five miles. In that rink there were more than a hundred people here I was all alone. It was a wonderful feeling, standing alone on a big hockey field on flimsy skates, it was a white unspoiled world out there for me to leave my footprints on err.. skate marks on :-) Yeah, nothing comparable to leaving my finger prints on the Stanley cup.

I soon started to miss inspiration, I mean people. In Atlanta that is on my first date with skating, it was very inspiring to see all the people out there and it was very easy for me to step right into to the middle of the field and skate on for the next 10 feet after which I would fall.
By then I was in love, and in love, it is ok to fall. I saw her in the winter Olympics, it was love at first site. After a while, my inspiration was back, there was this small three year old girl who joined me on the rink, it was so nice to have someone smile to you, we were like two kids on a secret adventure. That made the rest a smooth sailing err.. skating.

Here are my tips for twenty three year olds comparing themselves to girls twenty years younger to themselves on skating rinks. The two things in ice skating (as you do not have much time to play it safe) are don't be afraid of a fall and don't be ashamed when you fall. After all what counts is after three hours on ice, now I can skate Mr. 'It-is-so-embarrassing-little-kids-can-and-we-can-not' can not. Apart from learning to skate, you will also develop a very good learner's attitude which I was taught gives you a lot of money in the long run. I made quite some money myself that way.

After sometime, I thought I saw a thin figure move smoothly across in a glass window, the size of a TV. 'Don't tell me there is another rink beyond that door there'. Another figure moves. I go over to the door (walking on blades is worse than walking in the proverbial 'tight shoes' trust me). Yup there it was another rink! Boy these Americans have a lot of money and a lot of infrastructure. Two rinks side by side ?

In the other rink were two couples moving at the speed of light (that is relative to mine, as einstine said everything is relative you know). They were moving so fast that their dresses were waving in the air. It is the next level. It is grad school for a freshman like me. Before you start envying them and all, they fall! Trust me they do. As I mentioned in a previous blog of mine, everybody falls, winners are who can rise faster. But they fall attempting things much more difficult, pushing the limits of what they can do, given two blades and ice.

If you are not falling, it only means you are not trying hard enough.