Life of a Short Indian Girl

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Schools Worldwide (which is the company that organised our trip to Finland last February) about a blogging competition. They basically wanted students to write up their trip experiences to put on on their website. I thought I might as well have a go, seeing as it wouldn't take that long to write 500 words (I could've written so much more) and it's always nice to relive a good experience ☺ It was a nice surprise to come home on Thursday to find a letter saying I was one of the winners of the competition! So I thought I would post what I wrote, just in case you're interested. Reading it back I suppose it's a bit cringey (definite over use of exclamation marks) but oh well, let's just say it puts across my enthusiasm.... After one and a half years of fundraising, practice hikes and kit shopping, Valentine’s Day of 2014 finally arrived and a group of 36 of us set off to Finland with our back packs and energy bars to wh

Let me start by saying I am 100% a tea drinker. But, the milk situation in the common room is complicated so I realised if I want to keep warm during school I was going to have to venture out of the boundaries of PG tips.. Coffee was not an option, way too bitter! I'm actually not a huge fan of hot chocolate, but I walked past these marvellous looking flavours in the supermarket and just had to try them out. So did they taste as good as they looked? Contender 1: Belgian Chocolate Hazelnut Not sure about this one.. to me it just tasted like normal hot chocolate. I know hazelnut is hardly going to have a strong taste, but I was still expecting more of a melted ferrero rocher taste. Slightly disappointed with this one, but oh well, let's move on... Contender 2: Belgian Chocolate Orange This flavour is AMAZING. First off, it smells incredible- like melted Terry's Chocolate Orange. It tastes so good as well, not that much like norm

We're now 4 weeks into the Apprentice, so it's definitely time to make predictions on who we think is going to win. This year I feel like the candidates are even more cocky and bold than usual, although I shouldn't be surprised- it's all for the entertainment! On to the candidate break downs.... Katie Bulmer-Cooke NOW FIRED - "In business I'm like a little stealth bomber that flies under the radar and smashes the competition before they've even realised I'm there." You'd think the 'Fat Daddy video' would have been slightly better considering Katie MAKES HER OWN YOUTUBE FITNESS VIDEOS. But she was a pretty good PM during the fragrance task, although I'm not sure that just because you buy candles it means you are the best person to be the PM... pretty sure everyone knows what smells nice. Felipe Alviar-Banquera NOW FIRED - "I was one of the top 100 Columbians elected by the Columbian government. It was an honour becau

So this week I got my  certificate to say I’m certified to be a Pilates Instructor! It  seems like a pretty random qualification to have, and is not something I thought I  would ever do, so here’s why and how I ended up doing it…  As well as going to the main gym during summer, I tried lots of extra classes including Pilates and this really interesting class called Nova (a fusion of yoga and Pilates). I ended up loving Pilates and made it a weekly thing. Coincidently, I got an email from Groupon the next week. I have NO idea how my email was subscribed to Groupon as I’ve never used it before, and normally I consider them as spam and put them into junk mail, but one caught my eye. It said ‘Pilates Trainer Professional Diploma’ and was a course you could take online to certify to be a Pilates Instructor. Long story short- I wanted to do something different in the few weeks of summer I had left, so I went for it! You do the course on t

A couple of weeks ago I made a snap - and arguably stupid- late night decision to sign up to the Great Eastern Fun Run. Why did I do it? I am still asking myself. It might not seem like a big deal, but with my running history and fitness level it probably was not a sensible decision! Nevertheless, I stuck by it and attempted to train.  Now, I didn't really help myself here.. I left less than two weeks to confidently run 5k when I could barely run 50m.  I ended up going on a run 3 times before the race- gradually increasing my distance by about 1km each time, so by Tuesday I ran 4.5km... probably the most I have ever run, ARE YOU IMPRESSED? I am impressed. Disaster struck on Thursday morning when I woke up with an injured hip... not exactly sure how I managed to do it (I'm guessing from ballet the night before), but all I knew was it was very bad timing. This forced me to rest and not run until the race which was so annoying, but was better than not being able to do it a

This weekend I am celebrating the biggest Hindu festival in North East India – also known as the Durga Puja. This 10 day festival (which in England we only celebrate for 3 days because most people are only free on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday) marks the victory of the goddess Durga over the buffalo demon king. In Hindu mythology, the origin of Durga was because of a need to vanquish a demon, which all other Gods could not defeat. So, they (Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer) combined their energies to create this supreme feminine being. Legend has it she went to war and slayed the demon- since then she has been a symbol of the triumph of good over evil.                                      Over the festival days, this ten armed goddess is worshipped in many different forms including fire ceremonies, prayers and cultural performances. I have actually danced quite a few times at this event, but let’s talk about that another time… Tr

As my gym membership is coming to an end I decided to go all out and try different classes I've never been to before, starting with the dreaded Spinning class this morning. I was advised to NEVER go to a Spin class as your first class, which is why I've left it so late to try it. Spinning is basically indoor cycling where you change the resistance settings to imitate different cycling situations, like cycling up a hill for example.  I did my research before I went, and expected a seriously hard workout where I sweat buckets and feel my legs and glutes on fire- most of which was true! The instructor was really nice and showed me how to set up my bike and change the resistance, but the rest was fairly self explanatory- just get on it and cycle. During the first 10 minutes, I felt pretty good- I was keeping up with everyone else, my legs weren't burning, I wasn't dripping with sweat... but I was on pretty much 0 resistance going at a mere 60 RPM (revolutions per minu

This weekend my poor mother was bedridden, so it was up to the rest of the Mandal family to fill her  shoes in the housework department. Naturally my brother did none of it, so my Dad and I dished out the rest of the jobs. While he took care of the shopping and laundy, I changed bed sheets, hoovered and –believe it or not- COOKED. I usually fail at most of these jobs, so today was interesting… Bed sheets - The pillows were easy enough, but the disaster came with the changing of the duvet cover. A normal person would do the whole ‘put the duvet in the sheet corners then shake it until the whole duvet is covered’ thing. Of course, me being me, I decided to use the hardest and most stupid way to get the duvet in… It didn’t occur to me as I was climbing into the duvet cover that it was a stupid idea. Only when I got stuck and couldn’t get out that I realised I didn’t choose the best method. Needless to say, after about 10 oxygen-deprived seconds of struggling around in the mat

After possibly the best summer yet (which in my opinion needed to be a lot longer) it’s back to work, although this time in sixth form! Crazy to think we only have two years left at school …  We’ve only had 3 days back, 2 if you count the super engrossing Cathedral service, but I’m going to share some things I initially thought versus the reality of sixth form life. Expectation: more freedom Reality: Hmm not so sure about this one. On the one hand it is true, you have free periods to ‘work’ and you can go to town at lunch without having to get permission.  However, people make a massive thing about sixth form being more about individual learning and doing things your way, but to what extent is that true? You still have to do every bit of homework set by the teachers, go to every lesson (even pointless ones like LFL), learn the way the teachers like to teach… it’s pretty much GCSEs in terms of freedom but with less subjects and more that you actually want to do! Expectation

As summer comes to a close, the depressing thought of school has already driven me to excessive retail therapy. The things I’ve done this summer haven’t required a lot of money, so I decided to splash out the money I’ve saved on some lovely things which I’m going to share with you ☼ This ‘Storm In A Teacup’ mug is from Evolution (obviously, where else will you get random cool things like this in Peterborough?) I’m always tempted to buy half the shop whenever I go in there, but I managed to restrict myself this time. I was looking for a new school bag and stumbled across this on the BHS website. It’s a handbag so definitely not big enough for school, but it’s so pretty and was half price so I couldn’t not get it?? That’s  what I’m telling myself anyway! My speakers are old and virtually on the blink, so it was time to get some new ones. My brother recommended the Boombox speaker from Amazon , and I LOVE IT. You don’t need any cables or connections; you literally put

So tomorrow’s the dreaded day.... me and 600,000 students will be opening their brown envelopes to get the results they have been waiting almost 3 months for. I’m sure everyone feels differently about this, but I thought I would share some generic feelings from over these last few months ☺ Easter holidays  – After spending a whole day planning and making a beautifully colour coded time table, YOU FEEL SO PREPARED, EXAMS COME @ ME. By the end of Easter you then begin to panic when you realise you didn’t stick to the timetable and are actually 2 weeks behind schedule. The week of teaching back at school  - THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME WHY CAN’T WE REVISE AT HOME? I COULD REVISE THIS IN ONE HOUR AT HOME… okay I’ve never seen that word before. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention during the last 2 years… The first week of study leave  – pretty chilled. I can wake up late, stay up late, eat whenever I want and maybe do some revision. The second week of study leave  - oh no, my

With one month left of the summer holidays (sigh) and not very much to do in it, I decided something productive to do would be to get fit. Living really close to Virgin Active combined with no joining fee this month meant I didn’t really have an excuse not to join. So Virgin Active is a pretty upscale place, and with me being the dopey idiot that I am, I had some not-so-great and potentially embarrassing moments which I thought I would share (let’s just keep in mind that I’ve never been to a gym before… and the school gym doesn’t count). First off- the changing rooms. They are really nice, all wooden and spacious… I just wasn’t expecting so many naked women. It’s great that they are comfortable with their bodies and people around them, but it’s not really what I was expecting to see at 9am. And when they come up to have a chat to you...WHERE ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO LOOK?   I absolutely hate running, so I thought I would go for a fast walk on the treadmill instead. I was told