sAiLinG ArOuNd - pArT oNe

so we drove cross country for a week. from portland to boston. my car has finally been introduced to the amazing city of Boston. ( if i'm over enthusiastic, you can take it, that i'm slightly intoxicated from being exhausted from all the cooped up inside a tiny moving vehicle for 6 days)

so i come back to 263 emails. can't say i'm happy. that's after i cleaned up about 74 emails of junk mailing list spam. took me a whole day to get through the 263 emails and categorize them. actually took me 4 hours to categorize them and 3 hours to read them.
most of it was drivel, but some of it was important. ok 2 were important.n
took me a day to reply to those 2 emails.

great. i can take a break now and tell you about the amazing trip we had.

so we passed through glacier national park and i wish i could show you the grainy pictures i took with my phone, but not only are they grainy. it's pretty ... what's the word? the word to say the image does not have enough contrast ? i forget the word. [ do you sorry 24 ppl actually Enjoy reading me ramble on this way ? i am filled with a peverse ... intent to continue rabling on this way for another 10 minutes. when will your patience snap? ]

but really, the trees were an amazing florescent yellow and green color. i never knew such colors existed in nature ! the mountains were majestic. we drove through those towering mountains playing the background of bourne ultimatum. it was kind of fitting. i drove a little bit.
sheer cliffs, towering mountains, yellow colored trees , grey skies with gathering storm clouds, clear and sparkling rivers [ some of the cleanest water eh .. ] and us. driving through the winding roads.
us and the construction workers that is.

we had to be escorted to the top of the mountain and we could only spend a brief 3.5 minutes taking pictures since it was so friggin cold. aaah but what a glorious 3.5min it was !!

so montana and wyoming was pretty good ! flat lands. a bluish, reddish moon in the horizon. it looked HUGE. miles and miles of empty spaces... i finally felt i had room to breathe.  aah space.. finally.

more in part 2.

fOrGeTtiNg piLLs

my awesome classes , didn't really end with a bang. more like a limp and a whimper, with one black eye to boot. not really the trainer's fault. it's not his fault that the class was filled with the winjerks.

it;s a friday afternoon and china has gone on leave. well i mean the chinese office is on leave all of next week. invariably this means that things will be a little slow, since we still depend on them for a lot of things.

lets admit it already, i'm exhausted. i'm looking fwd to a break.


she tells me she's beein a s/w engineer for 15 years.

FIFTEEN YEARS !

what have you been DOING?

on WINDOWS!

gaaaaaH

thats's horrible

on another note, i think my friend is defending her thesis today.. i think so. i swear i remember vaguely her mentioning it, but you know.. the voices in my head.. they drown out everything else. one of the "better" things about marriage is that you have a lot more ppl in your life. a lot more ppl who care about you.. which is nice, but you are also legally or emotionally required to care about them. before i could honestly say i pretty much didn't care about what 99.99999% of the world's population did or do, or if they had a cold or sneezed or had a backache. now that number might have reduced by 10ppl. that's 10 ppl too many. i mean do you care if "U's" sister's daughter's cousin gave birth and because of which i cannot celebrate a festival, which by the way somehow just slipped past my mental calendar so i didn't really know i was missing it?

but ofcourse i "should" care. and if i was more of a human being, the thoughts of how little i care would haunt me. but luckily i'm not.

so anyways now there are x more ppl, and sometimes... [ just sometimes ] i feel horrible for not remembering their b'day or the fact they had a fever [ sorry ak, how are u feeling today btw? ] and etc etc.
ofcourse the feeling lasts about 15sec before the voices in my head drown them out with another internal crisis. [ STOP it, i'm trying to think. will you guys be QUIET for 10 sec please??? thank you ]
so what DOES end up happening is... i remember to call about 4 ppl [ my mom, my FIL, my SIL, my MIL ] about once a week. and i remember to call my husband about everyday. that's about it. more than that and i don't think my mental checklist could handle it.[ that's how i forget to call my poor brother about 3 weeks in a row now ] now that i do all this remembering, i can't remember what each one of them told me the last time i spoke to them.
now these folks are all kind. and all allow me some mental deficiency. and kindly remind me of the events i should remember in the next person's call.  so my FIL will remind me what my SIL told me yesterday and my SIL will remind me what my MIL said last week.

so what ends up happening is a brief flash of rememberence that i forgot to wish someone luck on their thesis defense and then an even briefer and brilliant flash of guilt before, like a chipmunk i see the next shiny object and oooh, when did that happen? and the voices in my head start their blasted cacaphony all over again. [ i said BE QUIET or it's loud opera for ALL of you for the next 4 hours straight ]

i'm not sure you get the idea of daily cycle of panic and guilt and crazy amnesia i live in.. but remind me next time, and i'll tell you all over again.

dAy 1 oF AwEsOME cLAsS

i kind of liked my old blogger design.
 oh well. anyways,

so i signed up for this really really cool class. or so i thought. Linux device driver developement class.

 and i'm really excited to listen to lectures for a change.

 ofcourse i'm freshs back from Boston, so i OBviously have Jetlag. and i come to class at 6:15AM and be prepared to wait for 2 hours.

 all is well. or as they say in dutch alles goed. then the folks start trickling in.. and ppl slowly fill up all the empty spaces. class starts normally enough. in 10 minutes someone has a question...i'm prepared to listen with baited breath, these are some great minds of intel. surely they have insightful questions.

 O.M.G

"is there a UI interface to format the thumbdrive ? my linux screwed up my thumbdrive and now i can't see it."
instructor is silent. he looks around. he asks quietly, "are you a windows programmer"
"yes" i see his face getting a little red.
and someone hastily jumps in. "you should install gparted, thats an easy UI interface for formating filesystems."
"how do i do that?" here let me show her. she is slowing down our class!
"uh oh, you don't have any network connection installed. but i have it in my virtualbox. how did you install this thing?"
"i don't know. i dont have shared folders , my thumbdrive is not detected, no network connection... windows is so much easier"
"DON'T SAY THAT" [ that's me unravelling a bit here ]
i must have startled her with my vehemence. she finally gets her thumbdrive formatted on a windows machine. [ she actually then swapped her hard disk to get a linux hard disk so she wouldn't have to deal with virtualbox!! ] so then she goes up to the instructor, and practically mumbles "windows is so much easier, i dont think i like linux as much"
"i HATE windows" [ that's me unravelling a little bit more ] " i'm a die hard linux fan"
instructor looks at me sympathetically, i guess he understands more than anyone else how i'm about to slap someone something fierce.

 anyways all that's done. she's quiet now. and probably warned by the look in my eye. the instructor continues.. and shows some of us how to untar a file , copy contents.
"can't i just use the UI for that? isn't there drag and drop?"
OMG U.F.M [ and incase you don't get it.. it's Unbelievable effing MORON ]

 aaaaaaaargh. stupid windows programmers who know nothing about nothing.


after a while on another topic the guy sitting to the right of me, suggested locking down pages in user space. i don't know what that means exactly, but the isntructor's jaw dropped, his face definitely turned purple and he said "NO, DON't EVER DO THAT". still that guy was pretty convinced he wanted to do it.

talking about system calls and the stack depth, someone else had an argument if it was 4 or 5. while this smartass [isn't there atleast ONE in every class ] chimes in " my GOD, you unix guys quibble over everything. registers are CHEAP, who cares how many arguments you pass and the stack depth. it DOESN't MAtter"

i left before i really slapped him.

alles NOT goed.

aM i a nErD a GeEk oR nEiThEr??

urk! i can't imagine how it could get much worse. i could SWEAR that i had booked my tickets a week ago! but then i check last night, and OMG, i couldn't find the paperwork! it never went through!! so here i am two days before i need to leave without a ticket! what will happen???? [ 2 days later... ] ok i'm on a flight to portland.. phew.. made it on time. but curses !!! i've got a united ticket... though it's operated by conti.. so that's a good thing.. but then the seats are so terrible, i got a terrible neck and shoulder ache... but they DO have direct tv, which is ofcourse not free, so not at all helpful.. argh!! i hate conti. saw an episode of new girls. hmm i like this quirky crazy female.. though she is a little too crazy if you know what i mean. it's sad to think of what i've become. sat evening, i spent configuring my VirtualBox on my windows host to behave perfectly or even better than the machine in the lab. it's so perfect it brings tears of joy to my eyes... no more downloading and uploading files to my machine .. stupid windows to linux limitations. now i simply have a shaerd folder and voila ! i'm in heaven. and then ofcourse it's been a while since i watched some star trek. silly costumes, completely fake looking sci fi stuff and jean luc picard... there isn't a better way of spending a sat evening, yes and that includes looking at the silly makeup for data. you can clearly see the "android" getting older and saggier. Riker .. poor riker. after 6 seasons, he just looks drunk , or stoned or beer'd up. speaking of beer, we went to niagra for the long weekend. was awesome ! i don't think i could have imagined how awesome it could be. after that we went to a vineyard and that's where i was amazed to see my FIL try some wine!! woohoo.... go FIL!! sleepy now. yaaawn. jet lag catching up. i gotta go back and play with my new linux box.

eXpANdiNg tO fiLL sPaCeS

i can't believe how much stuff we've accumulated in just a short month after moving into our new place.

and NOW i can't believe how i survived 5 years without any of this stuff. it's funny huh, when you look around yourself and notice all the nice and shiny new toys you ABSOLUTELY need to complete your day. like.. like angry birds and tea kettles.

while i await my deadly midnight meeting , i'm forced .. really forced to wonder.
OMG what is WRONG with me. i'm working more than 12 hours a day. urk! it's horrid. leaves a very bitter taste in ur mouth. yes work does. well atleast excessive work does.

i think i'm forced to admit .... maybe half my problems are self made. aaw shucks ofcourse most of my issues are self made.. [ who am i kidding? ] maybe i was a little careless or a little complacent or just too tired. in any case, apparently my stuff is the only one incomplete, and everyone is suddenly awake to the fact that i exist.

oh well. atleast tomorrow i won't have to stay up half the night. and i can always catch some sleep on the flight to and fro from this place.

yaawn, damn you stupid pigs. die!

tOuGh cLiMb

ok so i didn't have a camera.. it's in hudson. and so i just downloaded someone's pic off the web. guess i'll have to wait for S to send me the pics off her phone later.

saddle mountain hike..
amazing and exhausting. well not so bad. i just had a tough time in the last leg, the last 0.75 miles of the 2.75 mile climb.

the view WAS amazing! and totally a fitting last hike in Oregon!!!

here's to many more hikes in Boston..

iCaRuS mOdE

this is me , like last weekend.

K took me sky diving and it was AWESOmE !!!

i always did want to fly... and now i can tell you all about it.

i'll update later.. gtg now.



update - ok stuck for another hour in a stupid meeting.
what's interesting is to see how different ppl handle something like jumping of a plane. four of us went to do this. we all had to sit in a room and sign away all waievers or claims to our lives in case of negligence or stupidity. it's like saying, well u can be stupid and dumb, or plain lazy and kill me... but its ok, no problem i forgive you coz those few moments i'll be flying in the air will be the most glorious moments ever!

4 of us. the first one , probably the smartest one [ yes the one who goes to MIT ] decides to think , not to think so that she can enjoy the jump. [ yes figure, maybe that's why she's in MIT ] , the second is terrified about jumping off... the actual act of jumping, how will he ever get himself to do it, the third is scared of landing.. [ what if i just go .. splat!.. like a hot sack of potatoes falling from the sky and voila instant potato pancake! ] and the last ofcourse our very own man of steel is already planning for his sky diving license.

ofcourse it was awesome ! nothing like you can imagine, you can taste the clouds. [ yummmm..... vanilla... ] you can feel the wind... look at the view from 10,000 ft up... [ ofcourse not much registers , what with all the screaming. did i mention there's a lot of screaming? ]
i did finally stop screaming once the parachute opened. suddenly everything goes quiet. and silent and you can see for miles and miles in all direction.

the planet like a green .. multi green colored carpet. the rivers, the trees, surprisingly we don't notice the silly motorways and highways. we'd rather admire the snake like rivers and jewel like water bodies.

yup it was amazing! and i can't wait for next time.

ps: ok ok i admit , i did kiss the ground when i finally landed. i was never so happy to be on land.

cOoKinG wiTh ZeST

we went to a team event. it was a cooking class. we cooked and ate the food for dinner.
some of it was actually good !

my team made some ricotta and vegetables fritters.

lets see

there was ricotta cheese, 1.5cup + grates zuchinni (grated) + fine chopped red bell pepper (1 or 0.5) + garlic fine chopped + parmeshan cheese grated + salt and pepper + breakdcrumbs to coat it all. mix them well.
i think some olive oil in the mix. like 0.5 cup but i cant remember how much exactly. so dont put too much olive oil.

and mix them all up and make like pattys. and then shallow fry it. and eat it with a sauce, but then we didnt make the sauce. all i know it was white, had some lemon in it and some herbs and garlic in it.

it was yum though.
aaah.

mAkiNg mENtaL LiStS

yes i admit it. i like a good challenge when it comes to cooking < ok.. OK. FINE. i haven't exactly mastered making a LIST and shopping by the 'RULES' which is chiefly buy stuff when it gets over.. yes THAT rule. >
which is why, more often than not, i come back from a grocery trip and open my fridge and go Doh! < wince >
i shop in my own 'style'. walk haphazardly round the store in no particular order and randomly pick stuff if it catches your fancy. YES, that's a style. Yes, very rarely do i have all the ingredients to make anything and yes i am forced then to come up with my own recipes that albiet taste a little < little, i said little > strange, still somehow manage to keep me alive.
and yes that also sometimes means i have to search google < the god of everything > for recipes.
tuesday: tomatoes + peas + methi + no onions.
friday: potatoes + garlic. no tomatoes + no ginger + no corriander + half onion.
most times google gives up and gives me the number of pizza hut or noodles&company.
aah google, so wise..

this 'style' doesn't really work when you live with a roommate. that's something i quickly realized [ ok OK , realized after it happened the 4th time in a week... not so quick after all ] after a brief stint of cohabitation with K. an outing goes typically something like this.
K: lets make chole today! i soaked the channa!
me: sure. sounds good.
K: we need to pick up some onions and ginger
me: ok. sounds good.

..

..

< enter the house , deposit the groceries , open the fridge to start food preparation attempts >
K: where's the tomatoes?
me: huh? what?
K: the tomatoes, the tomatoes < K's getting a lil louder ... and some primitive instinct of self-preservation makes me slowly edge away >
me: uhhhh... aren't they there? umm.. < belatedly realizing i used the last of them for lunch yesterday. my brain is rapidly trying to think of alternatives.. lets use ketchup.. no. there's a jar of salsa* in the fridge...hmm maybe. >
K: < while opening another drawer > where's the garlic?
me: < shit shit... i'm still edging away > ummm.. i think that's over too.
K: why didn't you say something in the store !!! < voice is now atleast an octave higher.. >
me: well, you see, i was thinking of this stuff i read on the internet in the morning. and there was this opinion, but i was just thinking that if everyone thought the same way, it wouldn't work out.. but then you know the other voice in my head piped up and was arguing for it... but mostly there was this huge argument going on in my head over this thing i read.. and...umm....
K: .....

K's got pretty used to keeping his car keys in his pocket and making three trips to the store in a day.

making a list doesn't really work. THAT usually works like this.

me: ha! lets go to the store. i have a LIST. it's pretty comprehensive too. it's 2 effing pages.
K: ok

...

..

.

< enter the store and get a cart >

K: ok whip out the list. anytime now.
me: ummm i forgot the list. i think i remember 4 things from it. did i need lemon or lemon floor cleaner?
K: .....

my way is sooo much better...
now, let's see what can i make with quarter of an onion, some frozen peas, 1 tomato and coconut ?

*yes i have used salsa when i ran out of tomatoes once. and believe it or not, the curry wasn't too bad. the pasta didn't turn out so good though. reminder: don't use salsa in a pasta recipe.

a sMaLLiSh sToRy

An unfortunate occurrence to be sure, but I have lost the ability to keep track of dates. What we do here in the Company is to assign work weeks and then track them as wwXX.2 or wwYY.4 which means the nth day of that work week. Now R pinged me yesterday and reproached me for forgetting her b'day. "What?? What do you mean June __th??? Why didn't you tell me in plain English that ur b'day is ww25.3??? What date is it today btw?? All I know is that it's ww26.6…

Now I've been reading quite a bit since the last one week and something seems to have come over me. an idea, nay in fact a germ of an idea in my head. If you would give me , but one moment, just a smidgeon of a moment and allow me to clear the idea in my head and jot down a few thoughts... I would be very much obliged, to say the least.

Now the Company [ henceforth it will always be the Company ] was pretty hard headed. Indeed , if the company had been a person, then it would be a steely eyed, gum chewing, expensive suit wearing, new york broker who'd give you one look and tell you how much money you had in your bank right down to the shilling.
But that's besides the point.
What's the point?... I know your wondering... Well lets get right to it then. The Company, though pretty hard headed, didn't begrudge it's employees some of the perks that some others considered an extravagance, but instead a justified means to boost employee morale, though secretly everyone had already guessed at the ulterior motives of the Company in providing the above said perk.
Since an excess of 10,000 employees worked in close proximity to each other, [ closer than they wished ] sitting in dull grey cubes that remind them of the 5th moon of Jupiter [ and by that I mean barren, icy and hellish looking ] , and these faithful employees worked from dawn to dusk and sometimes more, always loyal and mindful of the remaining 9999, who were simply waiting to jump on the chance to stomp the one down, in case of a mistake. And since all these employees had something called a lunch break which was an only natural and humane break to have considering the number of hours stuck in the hellish cubicles... Now you could imagine the pandemonium that was the 'lunch break'. 10000 ppl stomping out of the building and getting into their cars and hunting for lunch.. And then all of them stomping back an hour later, to their dull , hellish cubicles. But on second thoughts perhaps you shouldn't imagine it.

So the Company of course offered this perk. This perk of an in-house café. Now imagine , you could get lunch right in the building! Wasn't it marvelous. Never mind that the food reminded one of the nether regions of pluto [ and by that I mean so bland and pale and insignificant that even the gods rejected it and threw it out of the categories. ] and never mind that strange straggly, bearded and tattooed men were regularly ejected out of the kitchens bearing 'lunch' to the mute uncomplaining eyes of the employees in their plain tshirts and plain looking jeans, who were clearly impressed by the array of tattoos and a little bit disconcerted that the man was smoking a cigarette and still never mind that the one hour lunch now turned into a 20 minute break to pick up the food and the rest was spent pouring over the quarterly reports while stuffing one's face with the special of the day. Now not one of the 10,000 uttered a word of complaint at this, after all the Company had provided a wonderful perk! In the august form of the in-house café!
And thus we finally come to Bertie. He was simply one of those thousands thankful for this wonderful perk that the Company had provided , just like the basketball court outside the building which ofcourse no one used because they just HAD to complete this report. Everyday bertie would do a quick dash to the café to grab a box of something, no not something… he would grab a sandwich and a soup. Day after day, Bertie faithfully went down, stood in line , got a sandwich and a soup, stood in line, paid for the aforementioned sandwich and soup and climbed back up to his cubicle.

Life was pretty good. Bertie COULD have bothered to make lunch and get a lunchbox to the office, but then Bertie was a terrible cook and it's saying something that Bertie preferred the tattooe'd man's soup over his own cooking. Also there was another reason why Bertie never got lunch from home. A very special reason. And her name was April.
If there was one highlight to Bertie's god awful day in his hellish and drab cubicle it was the 30 seconds he got with April. He would patiently wait in queue with his sandwich and soup till it was his turn and he would hear the clear ringing tones of "Do you need a receipt with that?". Bertie of course could only stammer bleakly indicating that he didn't want a receipt and walk away feeling slightly dazed by the sight his eyes had feasted on for 30 seconds. He would then spend at least half of his afternoon reflecting on the many extraordinary qualities of April , not the least of which was her clear glowing skin, her bright eyes and brilliant smile while she always asked him the same question, "Do you need a receipt with that?". Even her tone was so refined, and so her words were spoken so melodiously and…. aaah Bertie was indeed happy to avail of the perks, the Company had so graciously provided him in the form of April in the in-house café.
Of course Bertie was no fool, he knew that he was never going to actually speak real words to April. "no" was not a real word when answering the same question and he didn't have the slightest intention to go beyond this kind of worshipful adoration done from far far away. Sometimes, like today when he was forced to also have breakfast in the café, he would meditate on all the charms his April possessed, that made her stand out amongst the rest of the café employees; her trim and neat appearance with her hair all glossed back and her neat black uniform with not a wrinkle in sight, her clean neat hands and well polished nails, unlike that hideous tattooed soup maker! Now, look at that martinet!! With her close cropped severe hairstyle and dour demeanor and never asking if anyone wanted a receipt! No, Bertie would not go to her if his life depended on it!! Once when April was not around, he was forced to pay at the only open cashier and the old pigeon had fixed such a baleful eye on him while ringing up his order that he very nearly spilled his soup in her lap!

Or consider that scrawny looking thing with the messed up hair and the numerous ghastly pink beaded necklaces around her neck, gulping down her eggs. Her hair was a complete mess! [ Bertie worshipped neatness above everything ] what? She was wearing a tank top in the august offices of the Company and not a suit with a tie?? Bertie frowned unbelievingly that one of the Employees would be so impertinant and flippant as to disregard the dignity of the Company. [ Bertie was all about dignity ]. Surely she did not work here… Any by GOD was that a cigarette tucked between her B______!!! Scandalous. Look at those hideous pimples on her face. Poor thing !! How unlucky to not be blessed with April's clear creamy complexion… to not have her gift for tidiness and order. How unlucky to be so severely marred that it was literally painful to hold her countenance while it was just pure joy to behold his April. Surely she did not work here.. That top was just too scandalous, noted Bertie frowning and squinting to look more closely trying to see if he could recognize this person. Wait a minute.. Was that.. It couldn't be, Bertie almost choked and joined his venerable great grandfather. But .. But… how could…
And thus finally was Bertie introduced to the miracles of modern makeup.

sEttiNG tHe riGhT eXPEctAtioNs

i'm not sure i've mastered it yet. the art of looking at a new born baby and lying with ease about how cute i think the baby is. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying the baby is uuhhh 'not-cute' [ do i dare write in bold that i think a baby might look like a baby chimp or monkey ?? will i get stoned out of existence?? ] .. it might be the cutest cherub born on this side of the galaxy.. just that i don't really see it.

i mean i see it. but i don't "see" it. ppl tell me its supposedly different when / if i have one of my own. i guess the human id is a funny thing and pride and evolution combined will force me to coo and oooh and aah over a mini-me. but i just don't see it.
my very esteemed colleague says never get pets. they roam all over your house using it as a litter box and eat ur food and generally leach off of you. well KD , you have a daughter who's in her 8th yr of undergrad college.. you made a very good argument never to have kids.

anyways with multiple ppl around me popping out the lil monkeys. it's all i can do to smile politely and tell them how cute the thing is. R keeps reminding me. it's not a 'it' it's a she or he. ok ok.

well i wish you all proud parents good luck. and i probably will have to join your ranks some day. i'm either going to look back and read this post and wonder , "what was i thinking!! i was soo wrong" or i'm going to read and be "aaah i knew EXACTLY how it was going to be, and i was SO right."

ofcourse i have a private bet which one it'll be.

caLL oF thE wHisPheRinG temPtaTiOnS

finally! i feel alive again. i feel a strange lightness in me. a hmm or a buzz if you will. for a while now i've been sad that no book has kept my attention fixed for more than 10 minutes..... had i really lost interest in a passtime, once so dear to me?
but then A sent me a link. to the professor , C Bronte. and ofcourse! stayed up half the night and did not stir till i finished the book. it was done in 1 night flat.

it wasn't enough and i needed another. i could feel the old madness descending. i can't remember when was the last time i went crazy like this. i found another. now its been 2 days.. and i still hadn't finished. 15 more , then 10 more , then 5 more.. the chapters steadily dwindled, and yet monday was here..

for the first time in a long long time i thought about not going. well i had stayed up till 2AM and my eyes were a little blurry. but i stumbled in to the office. there was just too much to do. and my mind was too bzz'd up to actually read the book. but tuesday. enough was enough. i walked in, checked email and continued to read the book. i must finish !

ha! so i did. and both the professor and villette are excellant books. extraordinarily exquisite. the characters are drawn so subtly and so fine.. that you feel you could touch them and they'd be solid like you or me. [ also i always write with a very markedly different touch after i read the classics, you'll just have to bear it. ]
aaha ! atlast once again a book where a sentence is almost a page. where it takes slow thinking to understand what the author means.. where its not junk food for the brain. my brain is abuzz.
you can't help but feel the feelings , that the author wishes you to. the suffering , the joys, the suspense of the characters become your own. always a fan of the bronte sisters. one day i hope i have the courage to re-read the wuthering hights. the one and only time i read it, i felt such strong sensations that really i don't think i could go through it again. all that anguish and all that despair. i've only read it so exquisitely defined in the victorian books.

what is it about that era , that made them so pathos. and so surreal ??
not rude, not crass, not vulgar at all. something fine in their sentiment [ or atleast portrayed as such ]

hmm i don't think i can get anyting done today. and already i can feel the pull towards another book. just one more whisphers the voice .. one more. just a few more chapters.. no harm could possibly come of it. but after the last two nights of 3 hour naps instead of sleep.. i'm not sure i can afford another book. ofcourse the temptation is strong. just the first few pages, the voices continue. but i try to remember why i stopped reading for a while in between.

reading is a dangerous addiction for me. i don't eat, barely sleep, don't move, don't talk to anyone. ha! i see you scoffing at me. you don't believe! you think i simply exaggerate. well never you mind it then. what do i care?? to me, i feel it. its a single minded obsession that pulls me on and on.. continously towards the last page... to know what will happen.. i need to know, and need to know now. and if someone in the book dies. well never mind....

yes. it is time to step away. and take a breather. but i wonder how long before i slip back in .....

kEePinG iT liGhT iN tHe cLasSifiEDs

i have to admit , i'm a little freaked out.
for the first time i've posted something on craigslist and getting these replies from random ppl asking for the stuff.

so i'm selling my gigantic tv and dining table. and i'm glad to give it for free, which is when i suddenly get flooded by enquiries.

for a week my posting languished, imageless and unfree or notfree and no one cared. the moment i put it in the free listings.. whAm ! suddenly i get a delude of emails.
and they all want the TV. guess we all know what's important.

now ofcourse craigslist works because we have implicit faith that all we meet are not axe murderers or stalkers.. but some ppl have wierd signatures and wierd names.. and they sign off as Service Guy Extraordinare.. [ i mean what is that?? ]

so here's a note to the 17 of you, my apparent faithful followers. [ and the unsilent one's who do not wish to notify me of their perverse stalking nature ]. if suddenly i don't post a follow up [ and let's hope it's not just me forgetting as usual ]
please launch an intense manhunt for me somewhere in the northwest of the US region.
it's fine. you don't have to hurry. i'll probably be decomposing in peace anyways..

[ ugh, gruesome thoughts. i HAVE been watching too much of CSI and FBI and NCSI and criminal minds and missing something and etc etc ]

well i've packed 3 bags. got another 2 more to go. things are slowly moving.. hopefully forward i say. i'd hate to be moving backwards now...

pLanS fOr neXt weEkeNd

there is only one way to describe this video.

jaw dropping



i can't believe a human has actually done this. that many humans have.

:O

pAcKinG yOuR bAgs isN't sO eAsy

its funny. i keep hearing this phone ring. but its not mine.
is it the guy who lives next to me?? if i can hear his phone ring... does that mean he can hear me speak on the phone.
not that i'm saying anything terrible.. but still i'm just saying... u know?

thats downright weird.

***********



***********

is it paranoia if it's true? i feel like everyone in the office knows. hey, what r u staring at me for? yup i'm leaving in a couple of months. what?? u didn't know.. oh come ON. don't pretend you didn't know that i'm mov.. i know just by the way ur staring at me. i can hear kD asking me, "why are u arguing with urself??"

i like kD. he's cute. he's like this big santa claus. must be atleast a 100. ok i'm exaggerating. kD's divorced. but he's so laid back and funny and cool, that i wonder how someone like him could ever get so mad at someone so as to get divorced.
i'll miss kD.

and for those guys in the office who don't know yet, and keep giving me work. i look at them. just look at them. how will they react when i tell them i'll not be around to do the work. that they'll have to count on someone else to share they're long term dreams and projects. i'm not saying they'll be devasted, come on. i'm not THAT vain [ only a little vain, but not THAT much ], but still they'll need to reset their expectations.
and what about those idiots arguing with me for control of the project?? will they be happy? will they be relieved that they are the 'owner' of the project. will they smile and say "good lord, finally??". i wonder who they'll ask for data now.

I is a funny company. you need to shout at the top of ur lungs to tell ppl that u've done something. toot ur horn. report ur brag sheets. its frustrating, annoying and quirky. but yet...yet i spent almost 3 whole yrs in a funny grey building. day after day. it taught me a few things. i met a bunch of incredibly smart ppl.... some not so smart ppl. and i found that i could do more than i thought i could. it taught me that my limits are not where i thought it was. i haven't found it yet. my limits. its just a matter of training. it's here that i found i could run 2 miles. that i got leg-shackled. that i went from a scared kid to ..a not so scared kid.

yes perhaps its time to move on now. and looks like i've finally made my peace with the thought of leaving. i'm ready to follow the tide once again. and i can feel the tides turning. i dont know where they'll go, but i'll end up somewhere and the most important lesson of them all, that i learnt here in portland, is that i can be happy no matter where i am. doing anything in the world. as long as i got something useful to obsess over.

que sera sera.

i gotta go to china once again. hmmmm.....

i'M coVeRed. wiTh fLouR.

so it looks like i might be moving. to boston.

this raises a whole lot of different questions.

like what do i do with the 5 pounds of baking flour in my kitchen?? [ what the heck was i thinking?? ] and the numerous pounds of daal and rice and stuff. just stuff. everywhere i look in the house i see hideous amounts of stuff. good lord what happened to me and why did i buy so much stuff??

so in an effort to not throw away groceries, i tried to make some dosa. seems simple huh. i got urad daal and i got rice , plenty of it..

so i even have them soaked. only thing is , when i go to grind it, i can't really remember the propertions. well lets try it on instinct, whatever... i finish grinding and it looks ok....so anyways i finish up and clean and it takes me the better part of an hour. ofcourse all through that hour i have the nagging feeling that i'm doing something wrong and i should have checked the recipe...

so here i am 2-3 hours later. i stop in the middle of reading my book. let me fire up the ol' rusty internet and check the recipe and after all how bad can it be. for god's sake its just two ingredients. rice and urad daal.

..

..

oooohhh kaaaay.

big. effing. mistake.

it's 3 cups rice to 1 cup daal.. and not 1:3 of rice and daal....

ooooops.

$%#&^@. i'm screwed.


DON'T you understand yet???????
if i have to make this right, i have to eat this dosas for the next 4 months.....


time to host a dosa dinner party. jeez man, no one is gonna want to eat this. ^$%%^#$%

whY tO wriTe AnD hOw

one needs to have thoughts to write. thoughts that your willing to commit to paper [ not those that might put me in jail or send me straight to hell ] , thoughts that will not majorly offend those you know are reading this junk the next day, also thoughts that are not just plain stupid or boring. [ do YOU want to read about how my ear is itchy today??? or how i can't find the pair of a sick i mean sock???. if yes, by god why???!!?? there's facebook and a million idiots for that ]

one also needs time to put those random thoughts into sentences and then time to open the blogger website and type those sentences. but the most important part is having those thoughts. [ the thoughts that won't put you in jail or hell... ]

both H and D gave me 25 bucks each for .. i don't really know why. mebe being a good sport and helping their teams? so in all i did have some fun in beijing and worked a lot and sightsee'd [ wat? ] a bit. is it sightsee'd sightsawed? oh watever. [ you get the point and i gotta throw a few bones at the grammar police. how else will i earn their undying love/hate?? ]

aaah i'm gonna miss you short funny ppl working in the beijing office.
i guess i'm gonna miss a whole lot of things when i leave portland. [ yes i have made my peace; i will leave, with or without I ]

yaawn. can't really sleep and beginning to feel hungry. there's nothing useful in the fridge except some peas and.... argh i swore i'd never talk about my food issues... oh no i'm turning into a facebook clone!!

hOw cAn i sLeeP whEn mY brAiN is aBuzZZ

Gawd it was a nightmare of a flight back. First of all , for some strange reason everyone and their mother was travelling today back to the US. Second , there was this squawling, screaming brat of a kid who couldn't or wouldn't shutup through the whole 15 hour duration of the flight. Actually that's not true , she did give us a brief respite a couple of hours in between when she fell into an exhausted stupor. At first of course I pitied the parents, what could they do?? But then I heard them ofefring her a cookie, and o-m-g are you crazy? Are you giving her sugar???!!! Why don't you stab that fork in my eye while your at it. Your so effin insane you unfit sob's. pardon my french but a few dozen hours without sleep, is like sharp needles being driven into my brain.

Hmm she actually stopped crying to eat the cookie. In-flight attendent, please bring the whole darn box of food you have at the back. We need to keep feeding this baby till we land!

I can't tell you how much I missed google while I was in beijing. It was horrible. I had seperation anxiety and kept trying to refresh my chrome browser page and it kept kicking me out of my connected state. Oh cruel google, how you have made me dependent on you…
Though I did finally finish shantaram. Yes I admit. It was awesome. Yes I was wrong to say he's too preachy.. [ Though I still feel that about the first 150-200 pages. ] But then his experiences are awesome and allowances must be made. And after all that he's gone through, I guess a lot of allowances must be made. The book is well written , and he does have a way of telling a story. It is primarily his point of view and I have to admit I have a hard time sympathizing with him fraternizing so much with the m's.
But what strikes you the most is the amazing life experiences he's gone through and a guy who can write ! Yes go read the book. And yes he HAS captured our indian spirit very well. All things that make us tick [ food and movies and song and dance ] , all things that make us stupid … yup he's pat on.
I just don't agree with some of his sentences.. Or wisdom that he throws out. Hope dies when you stop dreaming.. Or something like that. They're scattered across the book in plenty and … oh well allowances must be made.

Ofcourse it's 3AM, I have been awake and staring at the ceiling for the last 2 hours. Just landed back yesterday and my boss tells me , moving to boston isn't going to be possible within the group.. So I'll likely have to change my job within or without I.
Sigh… I hate change. Its so much work! [ yes I'm just lazy ]
One thing I don't like about being an adult is how much work it is. You gotta remember so many things! Pay the bills, pay the rent, pay the tickets, get the money, pay the money.. Cook the food. Eat it. [ far worse than cooking the food, trust me ]
Remember ur bags, don't forget this and don't forge that.
So .. Much.. Work. Can I just hire a nanny ??

daY N

It's the nth day. I've been eating peanuts and apples all week. With an occasional pasta .. But mostly my diet is congee or rice noodles with some "pickle"
Everytime I put a morsel in my mouth , I sniff it, ask the waiter numerous times , "is this rice boiled in water?"; " are you sure sure, or just guessing…". Even then , I highly doubt I'm being true to my "origins" and eating only "kosher" .. What's with all the double quotes today? mebe it’s the congee….
And even if the waiter politely assures me that indeed, its just water and powder and I can tell from the tasteless smell, that really they have added no beef or chicken, its just some bland stuff.. Yet I glare at him balefully and with a gloomy thought in my head, that my dear ol' granny is probably turning in her grave at this very moment while I eat the noodles.
Oh well.

I thought guys in india were bad. Traffic and all that, but today I saw a guy just blatantly break atleast 4 traffic laws within the space of a minute. He rips on the platform, takes and illegal left turn from the platform on the right side of the road, enters the left road when the signal was red and does all this at breakneck speed.

Its amazing! These guys are worse than us!!

Whoa! I'm suddenly feeling thankful for home. Darn it, I just realized I probably I'm having so many browser issues becoz I'm using chrome!!

Tomorrow I plan to go to an indian restaurant. Wish me luck!!

The next day…

It was awesome. I had gobi manchurian. I know it wasn't half as good as it should have been, and I should have taken something more traidtional.. But there were just too many items on the menu and I went a little crazy. It's two days later and I still have biryani in my fridge in the hotel!!
Yumm..

Went shopping this weeekend and to the temple of heaven. Went a little crazy in the shops too. Shopped a LOT. And I won't tell my awesome find. It’s a fake bag of a certain ahem brand.. And I don't want to get arrested, so until I'm home safe… mum's the word.

The temple of heaven was pretty nice. I liked it. nothing like the summer palace or the forbidden city though. They were a-mazing.

I'm pretty proud of myself, went in the subway station all the way. To and back. Lucky the chinese are pretty organized and all the stations are written in english. I even changed routes and switched train lines. Awesome ! Chinese kids are cute, and funny and cry a lot when taking the subway. Ofcourse that could also be due to the indignity of having your bare ass exposed to complete strangers. I'm pretty sure anyone would be very very upset when put in that kind of sitch.
I think it's all thanks to the olympics that they had to put so many dual , triple language signs around. Makes it a lot easier for folks like us to travel on our own. Ha! I'm not paying an underqualified, over zealous tour guide kid fresh out of college to take me around and bug me about where my boyfriend is.
I can take the subway !

I saw another interesting thing today. a tree growing in the middle of another tree. From far it looks like the same tree has two very different kinds of leaves. The pagoda and something else. Juniper? Its pretty funny.

The ancient chinese were a pagan gruesome lot. Praying to the heavens, wind and sun, sacrificing animals , pushing them into big pits of fire and finally feasting on them. Btw eating vegetables is like fasting to them. wow! they must consider us a nation of starving sods..

dAy zeRo

Ofcourse, It is interesting to travel to a place like the south east or far east. It is most interesting to keep track of all the different kind of visitors that are going to the same place as you, and know what kind of wierdos are entering the country on that day.
To a place like china? Yeah you have some variety. You can say that.

There are the whites, the folks so enamoured with the orient and so desperate to show their adoration. The ladies end up wearing all sorts of junk on their person. You know the baubles.. And yes they do kinda clash with ur gucci and reebok maa'am. There are the men, who show their preference of all things oriental by turning into some unshaven monkey clones and letting their hair go. Literally.

There are the business travellers like moi, who are only noteworthy for their lack of anything colorful and their exeptionally drab outfits.
And in the end you have the strange little natives.
Such as that little man, standing in the middle of the corridor, wearing red headphones and doing this strange little exercise dance and looking so ridiculous that I can't resist snapping out my laptop, getting it out of blissful hibernation and whipping up a paragraph.
Hey, you. Strange little man. Did you know those snappy hip movements would get you arrested in my home country ? Just saying.
Oh god I look over and a full 20 min later, he's still making those little forward and backward hip movements. I must be careful not to stare with fascinated horror.

The general chinese public are not very much unlike the indians. Little regard for queues, and impatience to get where their going and absolute no care for conventional ideas of public decorum. Though to be fair they are far more well behaved in public than any indian back in india could every hope to be.

Have you ever noticed that are chinky cousins < if I may be so politically incorrect > , ok strike that, our northern cousins so resemble fish ? I often wonder, is it their fishy diet? That over eons they have stoppped looking like monkeys , like the rest of us and start resembling catfish?
That is one thing I notice most when I go there. Especially the ugly men. Ok , once again backing away from the political incorrectness, the not-attractive men.

Finally the funny little man has stopped dancing and gyrating his hips and is standing in the queue. Wait I am supposed to be in that queue. Ok toodles.