Ahhh *cracks knuckles* ..official first post...

Location: Headquarters of the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India

Time: Too late


As you can see, I am not infact in the islands now. I am at Headquarters, enjoying a month long break absorbing as much of civilization as I can. But as my 'commanding officer' has just issued my transfer orders, I'll probably be hauling my elite self back to the field by next week. In the meantime, I figured I'd draw you a more detailed picture of my field site, the Lakshadweep islands and introduce my extended 'family' there. Lets begin with my office..

This is my cubicle.....

(Which reminds me...anyone want to buy a spare revolving chair?)

Before you software techies and labrats express deliver tiny lethal darts of envy my way, hang on..
I suppose one of the greatest achievements of the 19th century cubicle-man was the discovery of the stimulating power of the mid-morning coffee break (with a direct correlation to workplace productivity, R2 = 0.99) .
See..I dont get coffee breaks. I cant chitchat with coworkers over a hot cuppa because a) my coworkers comprise inveterate tea-drinkers and giant reptiles and b) there arent any coffee machines where I work anyway! (Also No Starbucks, No Coffee Day, No Barista, hell..there isnt even a potti kadai). So I am forced to be self reliant and make my own filter coffee with my grandmums eversilver coffee filter. Thats not too bad if I have the Worldspace playing in the background but theres nothing like company to share it all with :(

Also, you guys get to unwind after work, maybe at the neighbourhood pub or summat like that..So I want to mention at this point (very casually....incase the stray parent is reading this), that the Union Territory of Lakshadweep prohibits Alcohol on all islands (yes..thanni thanni everywhere...and you know how the rest of it goes)...I know I'm not much of a drinker but what can I say?


Except......

. . .......Toddy anyone? ;)

.

Who da Dot?

Hi! Welcome to my blog.Glad you could stop by..
I suppose for a beginning, an introduction would be in order. So here goes. My name is The Elite Dot. Why?..Well.Picture a 43 kg 24 year old (read skinny), living on a speck of an island somewhere adrift in the Arabian Sea and you can imagine the dotness of it all. The 'elite', ofcourse, is just for style :)

I am a singleton - a phrase borrowed from Bridget Jones. And I work as a researcher on an island (see above) whose job is to study sea turtles. For those of you who think nature should come with an instruction manual and insect spray cans, sea turtles are large, longlived reptiles - often called the ancient mariners of the sea. This is not a technical blog so basically think large, think scales and think mostly harmless :)

Ok. So formalities done with, let me explain what the hell I'm really doing here on the bustling blogscape of the world wide web, the last place to look for an amateur field biologist (!!). Also clearly this expanding metropolis has more than its share of ramblers and time-wasters who only love hearing the sound of their own typing. So what do I have to say thats so goddamn different? Well...perhaps not much in terms of wordly wisdom, insight and intellectual gyaan, but perhaps seeing as I have an unconventional lifestyle, maybe you can get a glimpse of what its like to live in a place thats NOT growing six multiplexes/km every day, waking up to the sound of actual roosters and not annoying cellfone alarms, working at a job that essentially inlvolves long beach walks and swimming in lagoons as opposed to inhabiting a cubicle marginally bigger than yourselves. If you've ever wished your life was different, this blog will let you in on snippets on what its really like to get out of civilization and 'get back to nature' so to speak. You might eventually decide on second thought that your cubicle looks quite comfortable after all and decide not to break up the longstanding love affair your butt has developed with the revolving chair. But that's ok. This aint a sales pitch..This is the colour of grass on the other side of the hill....