Strike..

Fever took a huge toll on me. Physically as well as mentally. With all the time on my hands there were several questions that resurfaced. Why am I doing what I am. I wonder if this will all be worth it in the end. You know all the sappy, worldly questions you ask yourself. Like what is my purpose in this world. Being thirty one what have I really achieved in life. What do I want to achieve, what purpose I want to serve.

Then I regained my strength and appetite and I had steak!!!

I have finally done it…

Watched my wedding video.

I don’t have an appetite for coy photos and stupid wedding photo shoots. My one condition with the photographers at my wedding was that they wont ask me or my guests to “do things” to get good photos. I told them to take the initiative to be innovative and capture the best they know how. They didn’t get what I wanted, I didn’t give them what they wanted. A video was shot too and I thought I would never watch it. I lived through my wedding. I didn’t need to watch it again.

On my brother’s recent trip he insisted to watch the video and I joined him. It was super fun.

Said out loud that I will have a baby someday.

The husband and I enjoyed playing host to my six year old niece and my nephew who is one and half. We realized that the only reason we can afford to spoil the children was they had parents who will discipline them. Also we can always give the children back to them once they get out of our hands. The late nights, the crankiness, the constant need of a child scared both of us. Yet the parents appeared happy, in control and very engaged with their children. The commitment is huge, but I think in time I want to experience parenthood.

Agreed that I am too old for late nights and alcohol binges.

I am too distraught about this one to even talk about it.

This week…

We are 22 days into the New Year and trying to keep up with my resolution, the husband and I have booked our first trip for this year. I am very excited at the idea of flying to a new destination, exploring a new land, different people, culture, beaches, staying in a beautiful resort over seeing the ocean, trying out new cuisines, drinking drinks that come with tiny unbrellas.. Quite looking forward to it.

I was on a professional high for a bit. It is amazing how quickly reality sets in, fears creep up and uncertainty prevails. The resolution remains strong. I am going to chin up and remain focused.

I am not doing very well with people. At best I am irritated with everyone around me. Including myself at times. I have indulged in a lot of retail therapy the last month. The bills aren’t going to be fun to deal with. I feel the madness has to stop and I have to come to terms with “the situation”.

The fact is that I don’t want to have difficult conversations. Conversations are fine until we are dishing out the venom, but are we really ready to take the venom ourselves. Things don’t go from bad to worse when we have always taken the high road and always been the bigger person. There will be pay back time and I am not in the place to deal with it.

So I am going to take baby steps towards not letting pettiness affect me, theirs or mine.

About gifting and gifts.

1. Give what you want to give not what you think they want.

2. Give what you can afford.

3. Bring  in spontaniety

4. Planning, contemplation asking a million people is all good but at the end it is really upto you what you want to gift.

5. Gift registries are there to help you, not to dictate your choices. I think if you get to it early, you can get great choices in your own budget.

6. Recieve with the highest level of dignity.

7.  The only appropriate reaction to a gift is “Thank-you”

8. Say it like you mean it.

9. Recycle the gifts if you need to. Do it tactfully.

10. Sometimes, the joy of giving is far greater than receiving.

Prettier than the prettiest

On her recent visit to New York City, dressed in her finest my 6.5 year old niece asked me, ” Bua, who do you think was the prettiest in the room?”

I told her, “Me”.  She asked me if I was serious, and I responded, “Absolutely”.

After some thought, she asked me, “so who do you think is the prettier than the prettiest?”  I smiled and responded, “Still me”.

Feeling bad for my dejected niece, but not wanting to give up, I ask her if she wanted me to call her the prettiest because that is what she wanted to hear, or would she rather I be honest with her. To which she replied, ” If you were being honest, you would have told me I am the prettiest!”

And if you think that was the best part, I told my mother this story and while she marvelled at how smart her grand daughter is she commented, ” Don’t take it personally,  but one of my colleagues told me recently that I was the prettiest lady on the family portrait!!!”

Beat that!

Best laid plans

I have  a million thing to be grateful about. Good intentions, best support system, high goals and the determination.

Just for once however I would like to live out of the excel sheet.

Mind games

I pretend I need more sleep to get through the day. I need the rest. There is a life out there that requires to be lived. I  pretend I need to sleep to live. I wonder if mind games ever work. Does a person who keeps his watch five minutes ahead of time ever make it on time for the meeting. If knowing the real time doesn’t keep us on time, how would lying to ourselves help?

I check the time. It is a minute before the alarm is due to ring.  I wait. I switch it to snooze when it does. I have 9 more minutes before the alarm will ring again. I pretend. Those  9 minutes is all I need to get up and live!

Welcome 2010!

We are already five days into 2010. A whole decade gone. I am going to take time to reflect as to what have I actually achieved in the last 10 years.  How ever I think at this juncture it is equally important to figure out what I would like out of the next decade.

I am in my fourth year of blogging. Im not as regular as I used to be. I have even been accused of changing my writing style. If anything, I have always written for myself. That I understand can bring about a lot of inconsistencies in writing but atleast the intention has been consistent. I plan to continue. I am going to make no promises to myself. I will take it as it comes. I have so much to talk about and share. I hope that some day I will.

I am making 2010 my year for career growth. While I have been struggling to get a solid footing in my field, I have always made everything else a priority. I have given time to family and friends and partner. This year it is going to be all about me. If that means no phone calls, or emails, or socializing so be it. I have great support from my partner and I am going to make this support count.

I am going to actively look out for read worthy blogs. I am going to broaden my horizon from personal to medical, politics and fashion blogs.  I am also going to develop the patience and reading capacity to read posts that are longer than 500 words. My first step towards that goal was to read this post from a blogger that I have come to read and respect.

I want to say I will develop a hobby, get in shape and so and so forth. But then I have also decided to stick to what I do best. I do not lie!  Hence I make no such statements.

I am going to try and keep fewer expectations from people around me. I am also going to take reactions less personally. Last year I struggled with keeping a friendship that has survived me for quite a while now. When things hit rock bottom I did away with all expectations even  those of common courtesy, basic manners and some sensitivity. The results were miraculous.

For next year I would like to travel more. I am hoping that I get to go to one destination outside the US not including India and one inside. Fingers crossed for this one!

I’m excited about this year for me. I hope you are too.

Happy Holidays.

It was always Merry Chrismas. It even became Merry X’mas which I didn’t like at all.

Now it is happy holidays. Some people might think coming from India it is politically correct way of life I am adopting. Coming from India I would like to believe that I am being more cognizant of the different peopleand their cultures that I interact with.

Isn’t that one of the most unique qualities we as Indians posses?

On that note. Happy Holidays and a fantastic New Year.

About people and such

It is funny that I should be reminded of this post, just when I was beginning to wonder about relationships.

When I was in junior college, a friend of mine emphatically told me that relationships are based on convenience. Some times it translates to the money. Do people with money make better friends, than those that count their pennies? I wonder.

How often do we make conversation with people we care about or want to be cared by. Taking the high road gets advocated way too many times. I think I would like the freedom to tell a few people that they screwed up. Then are we ready for the consequences of such a conversation. I would like to see myself be the big person when I am told to my face that I was a party pooper, or inconsiderate or insensitive. Sometimes I think taking the high road translate into being non-confrontational.

Are we distancing ourselves way too much from people that we care about. Are we so scared to hurt our feelings or their’s that we have now come to the point that there are no feelings left to be hurt?