They say that every picture tells a story. I wish I could find out the secrets held by this one.

Say cheese!

Is there meaning attached to a picture taken years ago? Is it alchemy that transforms the ordinary into sweet paradise, years after we move on? Is it mere human weakness that we crave the moments that we can no longer have? This must be one of life’s great mysteries….

View from my hostel room at DAIICT (http://www.daiict.ac.in)

To start this story backward, I finally have some furniture in my house, thanks to a weekend trip to Ikea.

It had been two months since I moved to Seattle, and I figured it was now or never. So last Saturday, I took the plunge and bought myself a neat little corner workstation where I could keep my desktop computer and work (?). That wasn’t quite enough, so I also got a chair, and a sofa that doubles up as a bed.

The most interesting part of buying furniture from Ikea is that it needs to be assembled. When I finally had time to do this, it was something like one o’clock in the middle of the night, but that wasn’t going to stop me now, was it? I started assembling the table first, but I reached a point where I needed to hammer in a few nails, and being a good and kind neighbor, I desisted. The rest of the table was left for the morning.

There are a few words of wisdom I would like to pass on to the reader. These are:

• Before inserting any metal screw/object into a hole, ensure that it is the right size. Especially if it can only be removed with the aid of a coat hanger.
• Do not use a hammer early in the morning when you are partially asleep. There is a good chance that the hammer will wake you up in an unpleasant manner.
• If you buy a sofa for your living room, make sure there is something that the occupant of the sofa can look toward. If you don’t have a TV, at least get a coffee-table.

That’s all folks!

One of the labs in Phillips Hall, Cornell University

Spring break is here, Mattin’s Cafe is closed, Duffield Hall is deserted, and it is six degrees Celsius outside. I would have gone to Starbucks, but just fifteen minutes of free Internet is not exactly appealing.

I share this furnished apartment with two other guys. As expected, much of the furniture is quite useless. For instance, there’s this large sofa in the living room that no one cares to use, a dish-washer that we’ve never turned on, storage areas that no normal human can reach…you get the picture.

There are plenty of lights…but again, not in the right places. There are four bright lights in our little bathroom, two in the small kitchen, and one dull lamp in the corner of the living room. It’s as if we’re being told not to waste our time sitting in the living room. That’s where the large sofa is located, the one that no one wants to use.

Today, I decided that it was time to make use of at least some of the furniture. No, not the dish-washer; I don’t like to work. I figured it would be a great idea to move this large recliner chair (is that what you call it?) that was gathering dust in the living room into my own bedroom, where I could use it to read comfortably. So with a little rearrangement of the cupboard and the bed, I dragged it to my bedroom.

I think they make it that way on purpose. Why else would the doorway be an inch smaller than the furniture? I had to lift up the chair and pull it in sideways. I was actually surprised to find that it was quite light; I think it’s hollow inside.

So now I have this cushion-ey brown mass next to my bed. Cool.

Just when we thought winter was at its bitterest, there is a day of truce, a time when the sun grants us its warmth, the snow disappears and even the breeze is no more than a loving caress. Tomorrow we shall resume battle - but today we will have peace.