Nothing to say

Gosh I just believe that everyday I should be able to blog and write something. I me...an I talk so much during the day then why am I not able to remember it to write it down. I had heard that to become a good blogger all you need is to write down whatever you talk about. OR was it if you can talk, you can write! How hard can it be to put my 'talking' into blogging? Although somedays I have really nothing to write. Probably because there is not much happening ...

Keeping it cool

Keeping it cool and by that I mean not the weather but your demeanor. When you are at work or meeting, one thing that always is easy to do is lose your temper. While its not always easy, but your body language or facial expression gives away what you must be thinking or about to lose it. I always have believed in - what you see is what you get. I have always have been like that at work. Somehow when rules are compromised because your senior thinks its 'ok' to do so, your priniciples of following a process that was set in place and what you end up doing in the end always messes your thinking process. Or should it?

Being reasonable is not hard to do. There is always a middle ground for every situation to resolve. What I don't particularly like is use of one's positional power. If processes are created so everyone follows it, then that is how it should be. You cannot clout your decision based on your personal feelings towards a person or organization that they are representing. I am not asking people to become M.K. Gandhi or Mother Teresa, but a little consideration for the rules we create to do things in a proper way. So there is equal opportunity for everyone. We all are adults and should behave like one...

Achievement

A lot of people ask this question and I always wonder when some answer the following question in the following way -

Person A: What do you think has been your greatest achievement?
Person B: My wife, my kids, work.

Now really - is having a wife or kids achievement? Is it a feat? The Merriam Webster has the following definition for achievement:

1: the act of achieving : accomplishment
2 a: a result gained by effort b: a great or heroic deed
3: the quality and quantity of a student's work

Perhaps I am taking this literally - maybe what Person B means is that his family is his accomplishment because he has them in his life? OR that he has found them - really you find a partner, children come along. Having children is the easy part, but raising them to be a good human being - YES - I can totally see that raising children is a FEAT in itself.

I have asked this question to few of my male friends - and they have responded almost the same way. I was quite surprised. I always fail to understand men who talk about wives in terms of - 'She's the ultimate BOSS', OR , 'She's the ultimate POWER'. What does that mean? Is the relationship of a husband-wife that of a who is scared of whom? Are we not partners? Are we suppose to be afraid of each other or should one of us be afraid of the other? And then they turn around and say, thier biggest achievement is either thier child or wife or both!!! Talk about simplicity in life :) ha! Perhaps I do take this statement literally.

On hold

Have you ever tried calling to your doctor's office and the first thing they say on the phone recording is " if this is a life threatening emergency - dial 911" - you think I would dial the doctor's office which takes about roughly 20 minutes on an average before the 'attendant' checks with you and then will ask so many questions that you forget why you called in the first place!!! IF I WAS IN A LIFE THREATENING situation! please!!!!!!!!

Anyways, you remain on hold for ever before this person arrives on the phone and then WANTS to know WHY I need to talk to the doctor. I feel like screaming and saying, why should I TELL you that? I want to talk to MY doctor. I guess they are doing thier jobs and once you tell them the doctor can probably assess which calls to return pronto. Where is privacy these days and why do doctors take forever to come on phone. I should email them I guess...I hear they check thier emails :) hehehe!

Life

I feel like everyday I come to work, go home, play with kid, talk with hubby, cook dinner, sleep, get up and we go back the same routine. How can life be so mundane? They say you are in control to make it more exciting - what does that mean anyways? So there are fun days at work, home, weekends, and then a lull for a long time. You take vacations, meet friends, and then what?

I wonder if celebrities like Oprah W, has a day where she says...god my life is so boring!!! I bet all her days are packed and every minute is accounted for. I am sure she's worked her a** off to get to that point but even then, what is it about life being so blah!

I thought of doing this blog thing and boy have I been such a slacker in here. Writing every day is like a TASK in itself! I thought this would be easy, I talk so much - how hard can it to be write it out!!! Well...now...its hard and its time consuming....that's quite an oxymoron...no time to do anything specific and yet lots to really do something!!!

Just writing this makes me nuts!:)) Maybe more tomorrow...

Keep in touch

How often do you hear that - pretty often. Yet, we fail to do what we say. It seems like this new day and age, we find 'no time' to keep in touch. To me it is or should be as simple as picking up the phone or shoot an email, drop a line asking how is it going? Is it really that hard? I find it so hard to believe that when people say after like 6 months that they just realized how long it has been since we last spoke. Its one thing if you have moved to a different location and in that move you have lost all addresses or lost your phone so couldn't get back in touch. Or even if you lost your email account and didn't have a way to get email addresses. But to stay in same state or country or worse in same city and still not able to maintain that is just unbelievable. Are we really that busy?

Its all about time and priorities. If you really want to keep in touch, you will. Its no different than keeping in touch with your family members. Of course with friends you have a choice and with family, you end up calling whether you want to or not :) Just kidding...but seriously, why is that we think of abstaining from such a thing as keeping in touch with old friends.

I guess I must be on the bottom of the totem pole of other friends' when it comes to keeping in touch- hehe. I am quite a social butterfly, heck I am the first to admit that. I love to chat, party, call people for dinner, watch basketball games with them or even have coffee sessions! But I am not dying to be anyone's best friend. I believe that if people want to keep in touch and you are worth keeping in touch with, they will find a way to do so. I just find it hard that they make such a big deal about it.

8 hours a day

oh another half day eh Kavita - I hear down the hall when I leave around 5pm to pick up my son or rush back home so food is ready for my family. I wonder why I get this cat call - it doesn't help that I come to work at 8.30 or 9am. But I don't take lunch breaks and even if I do, I log back on VPN to make up any loss time. But why do people assume that people like me, especially me who has young kids at home, working hubby, no extended family support, does not stay late at work MOM doesn't put in the 8 hours a day for work? That I wanted to prepare dinner, fresh if possible, so my family is fed on time, cannot possibly be doing more than 8 hours. Does the 8 hours at office or staying till 10pm at work or sending emails at midnight justify that? Can I not be doing in chunks and working at a minimum and especially fulfulling the core business hours of work and get the work done...is that not WORKING?

I am especially astounded when I hear about what a laid back routine I have. Laid back? Hardly but I choose not to answer this comment. For the record, not once have I ever questioned these people how they do 16 hours every day and spend quality time at home which includes not just taking family out on dinners but also helping with household chores, playing with kids, getting their homework done and entertaining friends. In other words, how do they manage 16 hours and still have time to cook, clean, feed, read or heck even watch Blue's Clues with thier kids? And then I realized...more than half of them are men, wives are stay at home moms, or have extended families to support them. This is certainly not to understate the work stay at home moms have to do. But at least there is no pressure for the husbands to get back home ASAP or pick up the kid from school or rush home to cook dinner et al. Some have fessed up and said, they don't help in household chores other than on weekends ...may be. They cook dinners for thier families, but once in a blue moon. They read almost every day for 30 minutes but at bedtime, that means the kid has had dinner, bath in some cases, and played with toys before they show up at home. They take family out to movies or restaurents on weekends or Friday evenings...what? really? How helpful!

So I end up doing lots of things and work 8 hours a day - day time 8 hours. Maybe more on occassional deadline or proposal work. May be this is one of those classic men-women who does more work discussion that has no ending!!!

Destiny

According to Merriam-Webster the word destiny means:

1 : something to which a person or thing is destined : fortune

2 : a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency

I am thinking of following definition #2. What is destiny anyways - we inadverntly use the cliched saying - I am destined to do blah or she was destined to be a star or he was destined to be a doctor...are we really destined to be SOMEONE or SOMETHING. I was more of a believer in definition #1 before but with time I too think that definition #2 is more practical. Practical in the sense, that I really don't have to do anything and if things happen, good or bad, I can always say - it was destined to happen!

I think definition #1 is for more strong minded people. I used to think I am one of those, but I think that was not a true belief or I was way over confident about myself back then.

So how does one find out what they are destined to be or what destiny holds for them? Perhaps, one does things just because of the circumstances they are in. Maybe they wanted to become a doctor but ended up becoming a teacher or a computer geek - does that mean they were destined to become a teacher/computer geek to begin with? Such things always confuse the heck out of me...what are we destined to do in this lifetime???

A new day

A new day, new time, maybe some new thoughts. I wonder who is reading anything I am writing. I am not writing anything earth shattering to begin with so I should not expect any comments either.

I am a working mom with a toddler who goes to pre-school and a loving husband who works very hard. The typical working family - get up in the morning, get dressed, eat breakfast or feed the child, drive to school, work, back home. Think about dinner on the way home, cook or be enterprising enough to make something already in the morning or the night before and have a hurried dinner. Give your child a bath, talk few minutes with hubby, read books to the child, do facebook (in my case:)) and hit the bed!

Time to find and read books or study for exams? Gosh? what is that?

Then of course you have those prim and proper people who find time to do every thing - cook, clean, read books, play with kids, throw grand parties, buy exotic cars, go on long vacations, and STUDY!!!

I started doing Yoga to find some peace within myself. I am heading no where in that department either. Either I am losing it or I am simply expecting too much from life. Balancing the life is like balancing on the rope! Can be done, not too easy though! Huh!

Writing

Is writing an art or anyone can write? I always wonder how famous people or celebrities write those New York best sellers. I get the part that they write books about thier lives and it sells and all that....but still do they really sit in front of the computer or take a writing pad to write down thier thoughts? It has always been an intriguing question I seem to get stuck on.

I came to Sacramento, CA in 1997 as a newly wed and of course my first overseas trip outside India. I had realized that my education was worthless until I either get a degree that was accepted here in the US or had some sort of a engineering background to get a head start in my 'carrier'. Well I had no choice but to watch TV, be a newly wed wife, exercise in the apartment complex gym, and viola WRITE. I did the usual, dear diary...but then I also thought hey why not write back home my experience to this new life: being a newly wed and life in this new country. So I did. I wrote letters to my parents, in-laws, and sisters - I don't really remember sisters but definitely friends. The common theme in all the letter writing was - gosh K2, you write so well. Its like we are right there when you are describing your experiences or even your own apartment. I wrote to them about silly incidents, like crossing a road at the stop light by pressing a button to let you do the pedestrian crossing. I know sounds lame, but believe me coming from India, I had no idea such a thing even existed. In India, you cross a road at your own risk. I also was fascinated by grocery stores having a post office? Grocery store has a POST OFFICE? Really? I was amazed at the rate I was riding my bike from my apartment complex to this grocery store, Bel Air, and mailing letters back to my parents in India. There are so many such stories I was relating to my folks, they would laugh at my innocence at times and jokingly say - why don't you write a book? Short stories - incidents that were so common here but for you some sort of an adventor if you will... Write a book? Its been 11 years now that I have made Sacramento my second home from India, and I still haven't figured out how to write a book. It is a dream for me. Perhaps one day. I thought for a headstart, let me see if I can even write a page. Blogging seemed like a good place to start. Who knows I may finally figure out a way and put my thoughts together and actually write something...book perhaps? Seriously if writing was so easy, I would have written a book by NOW!!!

I have started this blog thing so as to improve my own writing skills if you will - what better way to get free feedback from everyone whether I know them or not.

Can think of anything more - writer's block? :) Maybe...