anniversaries

As the second week of the next two apprenticeships (animation and bgPrep) chugged along, the lighting apprentices were really getting stuck into their mock production. They certainly got a taste of real production, with everything crawling to a halt when they went to render their shot on every frame and found it ground the queue to a standstill. They got their second shot to work on so it's been a careful process of balancing work between the two... and they have shown great character and good naturedness just going with the flow, but I'm sure it's been frustrating.

Something that is a nice touch at this office is acknowledging the passage of time a TD has been with the company. Colourful kindergarten style emails with lots of smileys are sent out by HR sending congratulations on the yearly anniversaries of the td's time at the company....and lately a whole bunch have been reaching their dates. Within the last month a whole slew of them reached both their 2 and 3 year celebrations.... and congrat's have been flying around the office. It feels special and happy and seems a nice way to make people feel good about both their own achievement and the fact that it means something to work for the company. It made me realise I wouldn't even know my exact anniversary date!

So, several weeks back a bunch of us had gone bowling and had a night out for Kunal's 3 year achievement, and on Wednesday it was Imran's 2 year anniversary. Imran has been my right-hand man for the mock-production...and saw Arun and I through the classroom training too. He's been great, so of course we had to go out and celebrate! A lot of people are working long hours on other projects.... so the group was just Imran, Kunal, Gagan and I. We headed out to the place we had gone before for bowling, but this time (to my relief... man did I suck at bowling!) we played pool. I haven't played since I lived in Toronto (ugh... how can that be so long ago... the 90's!) but it really is fun. Once again the spirit was purely one of fun... no competition at all. I was paired up with Imran against the other two and we all had a blast. We played about 3 games in the hour we had paid for (350 rupees I think) and there were a lot of tricky and fun shots. I really got a kick out of my behind the back into the corner pocket shot... what a fluke!

After that... back onto the bikes (wheeeee!) and on to Pop Tates - the one near my house - and I got to try one of their famous sizzlers! This is a hot plate filled with a huge amount of food. I got the chicken tikka.... but they come in a huge range... from fajitas to veg platters and lamb dishes. There are lots of vegetables and rice sizzling away on the side and it is definitely more than one person can really eat.... an American size meal! By the end of the night I had eaten waaay too much and felt that uncomfortable feeling ;) But we had had a blast as usual. Can't wait for the next one.