Birthdays and more

I did something I swore I’d never do. I turned 22. How does it feel you ask? Old. Sure physically it ain’t that different from 21 (actually the 3 cakes I had in one day might disagree), but in my head it feels like I’m entering new territory. Feels as though I really have to get serious now, and thinking about university and dreaming of being a student again just won’t do. Scary! Course, I did have a pretty great birthday so thats something I can’t complain about. Met a lot of old friends, got a surprise gift from someone umm special, had a pretty crazy night out after a very long time. Good memories!

The weekend was pretty interesting too. Went to Mumbai for a little mini break and got to attend BarCamp Mumbai! It was pretty great. Until 6 months I didn’t know what a start up was and I wouldn’t have believed anyone who would’ve told me such things were so big in India. My main reason for wanting to go to the event was their BlogCamp. I’ve been going through a LOT of blogs recently, and I’m just beginning to realize the immense potential they hold to change mass media as we know it. But I found myself just as interested in sessions about social media marketing, technology, start ups etc.! Me! I have always thought of myself as being rather technologically challenged (learning to use Bluetooth on my phone was a very big deal for me), and finding myself interested in software and websites was a strange feeling! I was also quite proud of myself; I went up and spoke to quite a few people there about SearchMyCampus, and most of them were interested in listening to what I had to say! That does not happen very often in the life of Vidha Jain. The people there were pretty cool really. Everyone was fairly young, very passionate about their work, and quite unique. I’m definitely going for the one in Delhi in May!

SearchMyCampus has been pretty crazy this week. We’re desperately in need of developers so if anyone’s interested gimme a shout. I’ve created profiles for myself on LinkedIn, Techtribe and even Twitter just so I can meet more start-uppy people, lets hope I get some results! We had an article published about us in the Education Times last week, and Sundar, a blogger from NITT published an interview about us on his blog, which is pretty cool. We also had some guys from this new channel-Newsx interview us last week, but we never got to see it on air so I’ve no idea how that went! Other than that we’re just gearing up for fresher admissions so things have been hectic.

I got a lot of books for my birthday this year which I always love. I’ve started this one called Things I Want My Daughters to know by Elizabeth Noble. My mum gave it to me (along with this book called Feminism in India which I love her for :d ) and its been alright so far. Not very well written, poor use of language and grammar, and not the most original story, but its interesting enough. I’ll read anything pretty much, and coz this book is set in the UK, I get silly thrills everytime they talk about shops I know or places I’ve visited. Silly I know, but I miss the UK! 

I really should update more often, there’s too much to catch up on in one post otherwise. I haven’t even begun on the slum clean up drive that we’re planning with Pankhudi in May, that I’m really excited about but we’ll leave that for a later post. Incidentally, I’ve been getting to know some of the volunteers from other chapters lately, and they’re all pretty fun! Oh well, gotta go update the team blog now. Catch ya later!