Milestones, Changes, A Quote

Hi there! It has been a while (close to two weeks) since I have written anything, except for those odd photograph posts once in a while. In the meantime, it looks like I have crossed the 2000 followers mark in WordPress and 100 followers mark in Instagram 😉 That is Awesome! and a huge THANK YOU! and to all those new followers, Welcome! and I do hope you enjoy your time here in this small part of the blogosphere.

These two weeks, I have been volunteering as a teaching assistant in a Primary School here in London and this school is quite far away from home. It has been a while since I got up at 5.30 am on a weekday other than to catch a flight or receive someone coming by a flight. The early wake-up, the hour and a half long train and bus ride, a whole 6 hours of school work and hour and a half long bus and train ride back home left me exhausted and tired and I still had to get some of my other work done too. Wasn’t an easy week, but still I managed to achieve a lot in terms of pending official and personal work. But my blogging took a hit. I could have blogged during my train ride, but I am not a great fan of typing on my phone, irrespective of how fancy & convenient it is. I like the typing sounds of my laptop. Mr. M keeps making fun of my tick-tick-tick keyboard sounds, thanks to my fast typing mode 😉 but I enjoy that.

I am looking to switching my career to teaching and hence this volunteering to see if I can and to ensure that I don’t regret it later. But these two weeks of spending time with Year 3 students (the same age as my first niece) I am sure I can do it and it would be fun too 😉 I should ensure that I don’t get too emotional and attached to the kids, though. That is something I have to remind myself daily when I eventually take up that profession.

I am yet to check out a lot of blog posts from these past two weeks but hopefully will get there eventually. Until then

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by KG (@photos.by.kg)

I never thought I will say this in my life, but ‘Happy Monday’ 😉 and Happy Blogging you all!

It will be happier…

WordPress review was a good measurement, but I couldn’t add much to it. So here is my personal review.

Baralikadu still reigns. After all these years (That post was posted on Feb 2013…) it is still the first in the search terms and always get the max views on my blog. Never would I have thought of that when I posted those photographs of a very small and quaint place near my hometown (Coimbatore). I guess I should start charging the folks at Baralikadu some commission if my post is earning them visits 🙂

This year I crossed 1500 followers…Yay!!! Thank you all!!! And hearty welcome to all the new people who have joined this journey! Hope you find my blog(s) interesting and entertaining 🙂

I finally made my blog an ‘awards free blog’ ( more out of laziness than anything else) but then as I say on my picture (down below the page if you scroll down)

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” Thanks for being part of my blogging journey.

and the best award for me is your time!

Took part in a couple of new prompts, apart from the ones I was already participating.

Finally got around to complete my Cambodia and Bali tour report a couple of days before on my travel blog. Failed to do one for my US trip I did this year (i.e. 2015) , but will finish it in a week.

On a personal level, I had to send off three of my friends to different places (and countries) for better opportunities (and I hate send offs even though I am very happy for them), was a witness to two of my gay friends marriage (can’t say how happy I was for them and I was their official photographer too , yay!!!), did two international trips this year (as opposed to one every year), ticked Sky Diving from my imaginary to-do list, got my tattoo done, tried my hands at dating and found someone too, spent more than I earned ;), worked out harder and got around to fix some of my long term health issues (will write about one particular issue in detail later) and on my way to fix a few more things for a healthier life style, took it easy at work (had to balance it somewhere), made some new friends, got a little bit more confident of self…well, that is all I think 🙂

With that, good bye 2015 and Hi there 2016! , Welcome!

Wishing you all a Very Happy and Joyful New Year. May your dreams come true and you stay happy, content, and hopeful. 

Take care and see you all next year! Happy Blogging! 🙂

A note of Thanks

Looks like this week is a week of milestones 🙂 I got a trophy from WordPress. Yay!!!  I have got a 1000 followers. Being my only social interaction platform, I have found that WP is a nice and cool place to hangout. I have made friends here, found that one answer I was looking for to make my peace, have my share of daily laughs, share my love of everything with others, follow a lot of cool, exciting and wonderful people, learn something or the other daily, you name it. It has been a very enjoyable ride so far and promises to be so in the future too. As I had mentioned in my About, I did have a blog in Google which was my own way of handling some tough times I was going through, but when my friend suggested that I start a new one only for my views on books and movies, a way to share our ideas and suggestions for books (we are from different cities), I chose WP and from then on there is no looking back. But it sort of branched out to include my love of photography and well, you know how its going. For all the support, confidence, encouragement that I have received from the WP community, from each and every one of you (old, new, longtime friends, followers, visitors, viewers : everyone),  These words may not exactly tell you how much I appreciate your visits, follow and comments, but these words are all I have.

As a giveback here is a short list of some wonderful bloggers and these are in no particular order (except for ascending order of the names) and I chose only 30 (out of a very big list) for this post, wishing and hoping that others don’t mind. Do check them out.

Antilandscaper

Apple Pie and Napalm

Bente Haarstad Photography

DJGarcia

Everyday Adventures

Experiments with Card Making

Half a Photograph

Harsh Reality

J D Kittles Photography

Jim Holroyd

Keep Picturing

Leanne Cole Photography

Life Confusions

Life in Progress

Lignum Draco

Lunch Sketch

Maverick Mist

Northwest Frame of Mind

Pat Callahan Photography

Penguin Ponderings

Roberto Cabral

Snappshot

Stephen G Hipperson

Steve Says

Tarnished Sophia

The Mirror

Tvor

Vic Briggs

Wandering Iris

We stutter and we don’t care

Zimmerbitch

 Thank you once again to all and Happy Blogging and Keep Smiling 🙂   

Tweet!

I received an email today from Twitter wishing me Twitterversary. 

So here I am, letting everyone know about it 🙂 even though I am not very active in Twitter except follow a handful of people, checking out their tweets and very very rarely responding to them.  I joined twitter to check out how it works and if I will be interested in it and if I could promote the posts through it. Didn’t hold my interest for long. I hardly have anything to say within 140 characters, unless I am replying to someone and I ain’t good at starting a conversation. No wonder I never use the SMS feature / Whatsapp much on my phone too.