Live a day in my shoes

2005-07-22T15:52:00.000-04:00

So many things to write about - my life, others lives, perspectives.. where do I start. An update, we have found another house and hopefully this time it will all go through. In September we will know more, because we have to close then.. lets see. My husband got into part time B-school at a top 5 school, so thats exciting.

Work is chugging along, there is still a lot of uncertainity - one day I am promised I am leading a team , next day the internal client people who are all insecure throw a wrench in my role description because they wont travel but want to lead the developers.All this is interesting , at times because its strange to see the people being so insecure and grown people so unprofessional, struggling for power struggle. Lets see how it pans out.. otherwise I have learnt lots of cool things -making workplans,interviewing and doing other managery type of things in excel and powerpoint. I try to stay upbeat but some days it just gets me down. Well life is like that I guess - some ups and some downs.

I have made a lot of new friends at work - and I will write about them another day. Am watching 'Born in brothels' and I am really liking the movie.. I dont know why there was so much negative press around it, and esp in India they didnt even screen it.Its not sad, in the depressing sense,its sad but the kids are still smiling and are like kids anywhere despite the circumstances.The documentary maker claims she is not a social worker but does strive to give them a chance to dream, and make a better life. I also saw a spate of Hindi flics - Bunty n Bubli ( tp); Silsilay ( a bit silly a bit ok), Waqt ( bore family drama types) and Parinita( I liked this one a lot).

Also saw Million dollar baby last week - its good acting and a good story albeit depressing towards the end . I have a lot more to write, I wish I could talk into a tape as I drive, because I get a lot of thoughts then, but I forgot it when its time to blog. Anyways as long as I chronicle my life enough, it shd be ok.. Ok signing off now !

House or home?

2005-05-13T10:28:00.000-04:00

Have been neglecting the blog for some time , guess if I am happy I dont feel the need to write but if something upsets me - I feel its very therapautic(sp?) to rant about it .
So I have been on this local project and things are still a little slow in picking up.My role has already changed 4 times in 3 weeks..But I am getting there trying to get a handle on things, though its a little frustrating when I am not super busy. Strangelybeing busy keeps me happy - some weird quirk ?
We have been house hunting on and off for the past 7 months or so - in most cases we didnt like the house or it was over-priced.NJ and the real estate mkt is crazyand so when we went to see this house last Friday we didnt expect much.But it was the most gorgeous home with a beautiful backyard, lots of upgrades and everything was right about it.We decided to make an offer and by Sunday they had accepted the offer. On Monday when we went to sign the contract again we asked to see the house again because it is a lot of money.All went well and the contracts were signed and the paperwork went to the attorneys.We were scrambling to get the mortgage and other stuff done, and were very excited, then yesterday morning I called the paralegal and she says ' the deal is dead'.For a minute I could not believe it but then after our realtor called theirs and so on and so forth, turns out they got emotional because we asked to see the house a second time,the new guy's closing date was better for them as it gave them more time - bottom line we lost the house, and I really had liked the house.
My husband is trying to act all normal - male bravado I guess, but I felt really bad.I guess this is life. I know we will find a house someday but life plays strange games with you ... but then again wouldnt life not be life if it was all fine and dandy all the time?
On a happy note, spent a great weekend with my friend A and the new baby and her hubby A and her parents.

This morning as I was still gloomy and coming into work I saw 2 guys and 1 cop walking after them, cleaning the sidewalks of litter probably some sentence/community service thingy. But amazingly they looked so happy - smiling as they did this work. It was strange, everyone has so many things on their mind and keeps pitying themselves, but in the bigger picture, people who are worse off are happy and then you feel so small. There are people whose kids get murdered, people who loose their jobs and get bankrup and so on.. yet they manage to smile and face life. Agreed I am a little in the dumps about the house thing , but thats normal . I was angry at the sellers but in 1 week I am sure I would have moved on.. and be busy with something else. well signing off now

Rolling off

2005-04-21T22:57:00.000-04:00

Its been little over a month in for me in my new co. A ( name has been scrubbed) and boy its been helluva ride. The first week here I was optimistic but confused and lonely. But the 3rd week here I had made some great friends W,B,D,R etc but had achieved no success in my work. I was disheartened and near tears. I went home that Friday thinking thats it, I couldnt solve my first project and I am a loser and what not and I was not going to be going back. But 830 on Sunday night they call me and say you should come back tomorrow. And boy what a week its been - I had a breakthrough on Monday evening, and a bit of a downfall on Tuesday but, by Tuesday afternoon it was all working, and by evening successful unit test emails were being sent. Wed we had a team outing which was ton of fun, dinner followed by Bowling.. I kinda like Accenture's motto - work hard and play harder..And the PMO actually pointed to me in front of 40 something team members and said she was the hero and she saved the day by making it work. Anyways its been quite a ride.. started saying my good bye's today and its quite sad really. Consulting is strange that way, you meet all these people and then part ways and will probably never see them again, unless they are on a same project. You just spend a min in time with each other is all there is. IM ofcourse helps you keep in touch , but still... its bittersweet....you move on, new team, new project, new friends everything all over again ...Good night CT !

Oh BTW just something to remember - W & B's C top 2 : Do you smell pipe and what is the first letter of your first name :)

The baby is here ( not mine)

2005-04-18T23:57:00.000-04:00

Just a one-liner post, my best friend A or is it B delivered a healthy baby boy weighing 8lbs on Saturday. I just found out today. News like this makes your day and puts life into perspective. Suddenly I was so happy, I was able to debug a problem I had been struggling with the whole day. Congrats A & A , and welcome to this world lil S.Good nite !

Been a long long time..

2005-04-13T21:12:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone - its been real long since I posted here..things sure have changed and sped up. Basically in early March I got an offer from this smaller consulting co. I had interviewed with and pushed A( my new employer) and they came through with an offer. After a quick 2 week notice period, and lots of farewells and good bye's at my previous company I started with Aabout a month back.Its been quite a ride - both workwise, funwise and travelwise. Lots to learn, tons of people to meet, and also kind of like the work hard , play hard bit. Last week we had a training in Chicago and it was a great opportunity to meet the others in my group face to face.I am so far posted in CT on a client site and although its in the middle of nowhere, have managed to make a few friends, and generally we hang out and stuff in the evenings..The work is scary , all the responsibility and the challenge, but its great to learn and do new stuff daily and I am liking it.. so there we go...On the personal front, had to push the baby and home buying plans a bit , due to lack of time. Another Bitsian pal of mine had a baby girl, and my best friend A is due in 2 weeks. Am so excited for all of them.. also did the social scene by attending parties and this that on the weekend.. am now under the covers in the hotel room, drinking hot chocalate and watching tv and figured I havent blogged for so long , so let me do that.. nothing much is happening otherwise...was seeing this TV show on CNN I believe called Nancy Grace, and this woman can exploit tragedy to the limit, you should see her face look all sad and gloomy when talking to a widow of a murder victim, and then all sharp and focused when speaking to the detective on the case, and then mean and bitchy when speaking with the defense attorney. To make it worse, every few mins, she would look all teary- eyed at the widow and say, what went through your mind that night, how is your baby daughter coping and so on.. after a while her fakeness totally grossed me out and I turned off the TV.. TV talk show hosts should try to keep it real !! Maybe thats why I like public television so much. Just venting I guess.. what else- saw Spanglish - its an gawd awful bore, also saw After the Sunset, its not bad.. saw Being Julia and Vera Drake both Oscar nominated for best actress, and really liked them...havent seen any Hindi ones yet - I know I want to see Page 3 and Black, but will have to wait till I have some time to breath.. ok will sign off now ! Good night !

Puzzles, microsoft and such..

2005-02-22T00:47:00.000-05:00

Gawddddddddd! Our server at work is so slow that everytime we make a change in our DEV environment it takes 25-30 mins to save it. Talk about productivity huh :).. I am in a much better mood now - I have decided that everything in life takes its time and you get your due course when its due. No point fretting, competing with the Joneses and so on..Just be yourself and live life I guess...On Friday another smaller consulting company called me for an interview - the recruiter then went on to tell me the interviewer who is also the Managing officer of this 300 person consulting firm likes to ask logical puzzles. I freaked as I really suck at these Scientific America type of puzzles so started looking up on the internet for Microsoft type interview questions. Which led me to buy a really cool book 'How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle - How the World's Smartest Company Selects the Most Creative Thinkers' by William Poundstone. I must say it was an interesting read over the weekend, and it does give you tactics on how to approach these puzzles. I could not solve a lot of them, but I managed to solve some and felt it kept me busy and prevented me from brooding.
Here's an easy one : "Why are manhole covers round?".
Yesterday was the interview - it was brr cold as I made my way to the interview but I did get there and could successfully answer my programming puzzle.The logical puzzle also was something interesting and with a few hints, I could manage to solve it finally.I dont know if the Managing officer thought I am not so smart or not but suddenly I am interested in this stuff..:)..
Anyways they will let me know in 2-3 days - I am crossing my fingers, because although they are supposed to be small consulting company with only 300 or so employees, I think they could be a great place to learn..lets see no point counting your chickens before they hatch - first I should get an offer !What else what else.. since I have decided to pursue the techie route for now, havw bought a book from amazon and plan to get certified as a Java developer. Hmm studying after school requires some sheer willpower and that is something I am weak at but I did get certified on the stuff I work on, so that has prodded me on.
Made some awesome pasta for dinner yesterday and baked a cake ( a la Betty Crocker cake mix) .. thinking of all of it - is making me hungry !!! Will head on down to the cafeteria ( am in the office today) , so signing off now.. and yes Kanags - if you are reading this- all I can say is hang in there...

Ok back from lunch and our server is now being rebooted so have a good 30 mins to kill. Sometimes it amuses me how similar our work lives are to Dilbert :)...Anyways yesterday I re-saw Kill Bill Vol 2 ( I am the proud owner of the DVD) since we recently splurged .After much research by hubby we invested in a home theater system ( no home, so a theater will have to do for now !) .. Its HSU VT-12 Ventriloquist with a STF-2 subwoofer ( www.hsu.com) and an Onkyo Receiver.. sounds good and we have terribly patient neighbors who have so far not complained esp when we test it for a few mins daily by increasing the volume a ton , but usually are good about maintaining a decent volume. We were all set to buy a Bose - because its sort of like buying into a dream or maybe even a status symbol, but after the reviews and painstaking hours of research, hubby liked the specs and reviews of this combo a lot more. It gave him a nice little project and we even ripped the carpet and laid the wires underneath and all that stuff. Will post some pics soon..

What else what else.. nothing much ! Will truly sign off now !

Ok what else..

Untitled post..

2005-02-16T13:49:00.000-05:00

This morning I started looking back over my blog postings lately and see that all of them are so negative.Is this a dark phase in my life or what, huh?But I have decided to let go of many things and enjoy life as it is. Not get stressed as I get left behind in the rat race and other life events. I think I need a vacation. Or I need to take a deep breath, and reevaluate a lot of my life. I think I have to get over the fact that I could be good at anything I did.I guess I am not - as displayed by the immense amount of success I have been having in my career ;) !!
I havent heard from A yet - oh well, actually they did get back to me last week and say they liked me and were in the process of getting my offer approved. But then again, they said they would let me know by early this week and its Wed and no news from them yet.I am not superstitious or anything, I have my own faith but lately life seems to not have a way of working out for me , and am wondering whats going on.... Oops there I go ranting again! I guess its sort of cathartic to write about whats going on in my life- even if its all pessimistic depressing stuff.. I have to start studying again.Maybe update a few more technical skills, get a few more goddamn certifications, some more crap to write on my resume. It looks like I still have time at the current job. We had a re-org and survived it yet again, but that wont last for long I guess.
Also one strange thing,actually you tell me if its strange, we have this friend , a couple actually, and the minute something happens in their life, something good or bad, they immediately feel the need to IM us or call us , like for example stuff like - I just accepted an offer, my wife just got a new project mins back and we will make more money, we got our EAD cards 5 mins back , and so on. Its one thing to share news, but another thing, to continuously barage us with info. about their lives. First I used to be resentful that all the good things keep happening to everyone but me ;but lately, I have developed a sort of disinterested attitude in life. I just dont seem to care about anything anymore. Is this healthy, should I be jealous, angry or be feeling something? Or should I just let the moment pass, and wait for the silver lining at the end of the cloud? You tell me..

Why do

2005-02-11T17:39:00.000-05:00

somedays seem as if the sun is shining brightly not only outside but in your life and everything is going great, finally falling into place

and then there are some days when nothing goes your way , and the sunny yesterday seems like a distant dream , because that was yesterday and today things are all different, all messed up?

Resilient or not?

2005-02-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

I surprise myself, my life goes through so many ups and downs but somehow I always seem to bounce back, or like to pretend that I bounce back. Blogging helps , even though I have no readers left, its a place, where I like to tell all and whine and bitch and rant and so on. So the big co. which I interviewed with - I am still waiting to hear from them- its A ( name has been scrubbed since I now work for them - edited on May 12,05) btw.The HR person said I would have an update by Wed which is today but so far nothing from them, but I did see the position I interviewed for was advertised on dice.com, yesterday, so thats not too good a sign.I have been getting bites from other recruiters so I have mixed feelings - do I really want the job because after all - it is 100% travel, while at the same time I do want it because it has always been my dream to do consulting, and consulting with the Big 5 no less.Or do I want it because I need this for my self-esteem because when I thought an interview went well, I would like to get the job. I felt I was better than so many out there but it was a tough crowd and quite a few ppl were technically guru -like with many more years of experience.

Why is it that somethings come so easy for some people, and not so easy for others. Is it because I dont work hard enough, or is it fate or karma or something like it. What is karma but a word? When will it be my time, when will I get that lifestyle change - a right career break, the promised raise, the house, the elusive greencard and more importantly some personal non-material things? Is it because I only desire things out of my control, or am I in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Should I contemplate moving back to India because I will be respected a lot more for my skills there - have a better time being surrounded by family, have a better lifestyle cos all these $ are worth a lot more out there for now, but what if I do and I am wrong?

All around people have changes going on in their lives, my life is on a permanent hold button and I am getting tired of this .. tired of whoever is up there saying - I am busy bettering other's lives' , please stay on hold and I will get to you shortly?

My life so far in 2005

2005-02-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

Its been a while since I blogged - gosh more than a month now. A lot of things have been happening in my life and so life is some sort of whirlwind state of flux because none of the things are fruitfully ending. One good thing, my lil sister finally found a job - she started as a Management Analyst with Bearing point which was KPMG Consulting till a few years back. She is busy and happy with her work and its good, coz she has finally settled down, though in my parents books it wont happen till she is married too :) !!!
Nothing much has been happening on my end. I am now a full time telecommuter, I go to office only 1 day a week , and that kind of sucks because some days I feel totally cut off. Plus the work environment in my office is very negative and insecure what with they announcing layoffs of 60% of the work force by the end of 2005, due to outsourcing and what not. We also started househunting, but NJ is so expensive and every house we show an interest in, kinda gets sold even before we have time to think. I guess the real estate market here is too hot. Basically its a bit pissing off because I have this checklist in my mind of a number of long term and short term goals if you may call them , and with so much happening at one time, I feel I am not able to multi task and close even one of the goals ! Hmm dont know, just feeling awfully blue today. I interviewed with a really big company last Friday ( had started the process with them in mid Dec and this was the final round ) and they were supposed to let me know by today. But now the HR person said I will update you by Wed, so its all nerves and anticipation. The job would be a good break for me in my career, and the interview went well, but there were many others interviewing and I dont know how many openings they have, so can never really say ! I am all glum and waiting , for something to move in my life. Atleast I got to fly to Dallas for the interview, and I got to meet up with an old friend and catch up over dinner, so that was something good. Well I guess I could rant on and on about my gloomy life but at this point I will stop. I guess I shd count my blessings - I have a husband and family who loves and supports me, am not unemployed yet and so on.. Oh btw saw this movie yesterday - Harold and Kumar go to WhiteCastle - its a tad funny and quite gross at times..also 'In Good Company' last week , I really liked it. And the Patriots won the super bowl ! Yeah ! The half time show and the ads were pretty lame in my opinion but I think the networks played it safe after the Janet Jackson warddrobe malfunction last year.

What else what else - yes I became a certified developer last month in the stuff I work on, we had a big snow storm with 18 inch of snow , it was mine and my husband's bdays and we gen had fun then..Ok signing off now, going back to work on my pitiful job which I totally hate now..

Tsunamis

2004-12-27T13:50:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking of posting about this on my blog since I first saw the news about the tsunamis and the massive death and destruction it has left behind. But I dont know what to say - how do you console those who have lost their loved ones, how do you tell them its Ok and this too shall pass?
I have lived in Madras since 1987 , and although I moved away for my undergrad since '93 and then to US , my parents live there and Madras or Chennai or whatever you like to call it , is my home. My parents and some dear friends who live near the ocean are all safe and I thank whoever is up there for it. I see the photos and they r so heart wrenching , its just sad and there is no better word to describe it.I just hope things get better, and the relief agencies provide the ones who are suffering with all the help they need. I am looking to donate to some charity and so are some other American/desi colleagues and friends of mine. So far I can only find Red Cross, any other suggestions please.
This was a tragedy of biblical proportions and may those who have perished, rest in peace and their families cope and someday learn to live and smile again.

Update for agencies accepting donations and tsunami related info:

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

What is wrong with this picture?

2004-12-20T10:21:00.000-05:00

Came in real early to work this morning and was glad I did, considering I got a parking spot in the front and didnt have to walk much lugging my laptop, etc too far in the 3 below zero F temps. So its very very cold - what with the Arctic breeze and all. Anyways so since I was absurdly early and the office was quiet took the oppurtunity to surf the internet for news. I was quite annoyed and disgusted when I read this news which had made news on TOI, The wallstreetjournal,CNN et al. :Baazee CEO arrested

I cannot believe the fuss being made over a MMS 'sex-clip' as the news media likes to call it. First they let the actual guy who made the clip go away scot-free, then they arrest an IITian who posted the clip for sale on Baazee.com and now the CEO of eBay India or Baazee ( who btw went to Delhi to cooperate with the investigation) , and are still yet to arrest the guy who made this clip. All the while, knowing fully well there is greed and corruption and god knows enough sex underlying the Indian political system. Yet it beats me that they hassle the innocent and never arrest the politicians. Its things like these which make me glad that I took the decision to probably never return to India and hang out here as long as they let me . One side they make a big hoopla about IT and westernization and liberization and on the other side the whole country seems to be involved in 1 silly MMS clip. God knows there are enough porn sites with stuff worse than that clip ( which I havent seen , but come on how bad can it be). Whats with the double moral standards -All the while there are videos on MTV and Bollywood flix showing more skin which most people will gleefully watch, and then still consider sex and related stuff taboo. I guess enough said about the topic !

Other than that had a good weekend, and we had out first snow of the season yesterday. Also saw 4 movies this weekend :
1. We done live here anymore - kinda deep and artsy
2. Mona Lisa Smile - chic flic and time pass
3. I-Robot - whoa lighten up on the animation dude!
4. Door in the Floor - too artsy and OHT(Over the head transmission) for me.

Also finally after waiting 90 mins to get in , had dinner at the Cheesecake factory and discovered its way too hyped, probably will never wait in line again, though the food was good and the cheesecake to die for so will end up doing takeout at some point. Signing off now.

Keeping up with the Jones and dumpster diving tales

2004-12-09T19:27:00.000-05:00

Sorry for my previous one liner depressing post and thanks to those who commented and cared enough to check on me :)! Guess was feeling bluesy - still am to a point , but am trying to shake out of it. I guess holidays are always tough because a whole bunch of my friends are going to India, or on vacations and the goras are busy wildly spending money and buying gifts. So it kinda blows when nothing is happening in your world. No buying of stuff coz you dont really need anything, no going to India due to vacation/greencard issues, and what not. Plus however much I love my friends - when I see people buying houses, having babies, getting greencards I do feel envious of them. Well no one is stopping me from achieving these things - well atleast the first 2 things ( the greencard is totally another story and in the hands of the great BCIS which believes in working at their own pace). I guess the problem is deeper than what it seems - basically feel frustrated that cannot achieve and be a true master of any domain ( guess need to get into gaming a bit more to really do that!!PJ!). Also career wise things are a bit slow what with the recession and all that and sometimes feel totally stuck in my current job. So all in all this keeping with the Jones is tiring me.
But I should look on the brighter side - I could be unemployed, I could be unhappy , unhealthy and what not. So I guess I should as they say ' count my blessings'. Well if there was a Santa as I liked to believe as a kid - I would ask him for a few things - to keep everyone healthy and happy, wish that my sister gets a terrific job out of school ( being the worrier of the family doesnt help I guess, and I feel sad when she isnt getting hired and I know how frustrating it is to go for interviews get your hopes high and then dont hear back), wish we(me and hubby) can buy a house next year and maybe get the greencard because having that in hand helps sort out a number of issues - and wish I could head somewhere different career wise.
So that explains my frumpy mood I guess ! Anyways yesterday saw this movie 'Maria full of Grace' - its an offbeat arthouse type movie, which is basically about this girl who agrees to work as a mule from Columbia to the US carrying drugs and her journey to the US. The movie was nicely done and you begin to realise how helpless she is and admire her spunk.
I plan to go see 'Oceans 12' tomorrow - really looking forward to it. Hopefully it lives upto the hype!I will post somethng cheerier and in the Christmas spirit tomorrow hopefully. Oh yeah and before I forget something funny happened last weekend. So my husband had another of his cousins who is here for 3 months from India in some remote part of PA, and he was visiting us last weekend.His change of clothes was in a plastic bag and so when we threw out the trash we threw his stuff and some precious ' lil black book' of his too. At about 130- 2 am on Sat nite , he starts looking for his stuff , till we realise that his plastic bag was kept next to the trash and so is probably in the dumpster.So at 2 am he and my husband were dumpster diving for his stuff, for 15 mins till they found his bag :) - totally gross!! And I thought those days were left behind once you move away to the suburbs and graduated school ( for the non grad desi students - sometimes you find really good treasures dumpster diving and when you leave school , you oblige by leaving the good stuff near the trash can for the next gen desis !!)
Signing off now , peace!

2004-12-03T18:46:00.000-05:00

Why are some days in life so hard when its tough to stay optimistic about anything?

How I canceled my AOL a/c and lived to tell the story!

2004-12-02T18:17:00.000-05:00

So last week if you read my previous posts, I had some trouble with my VPN and what not and in a moment of weakness signed up for an AOL account because they give you 1000 hrs of free dialup and only catch is at the time of signing make you give your credit card number. Now AOL reps have a real bad reputation of not allowing you to cancel your a/c when you call to do so , but I thought heck how bad could it be and still signed up for it. Anyways so this week am back at home and called Monday from the office to cancel the AOL acct. After a bunch of beeps and music playing in the background and the audio recognition system not understanding my Indian accent, I was finally connected to a customer service rep. What followed was totally annoying and tiresome coz the rep didnt let me get a word in and convinced me that I would get reminders and I shd use my 1000 hours first before canceling my a/c etc etc.I was in the office and so couldnt yell back at him that I was so not interested in his sales pitch and just wanted to cancel the damn a/c so anyways I hung up.

Now again on Wed - since I was working from home I called albeit fearfully wondering if I could achieve success this time !Sadly for the AOL sales rep , this time around, I was prepared with a retort to everything he could say to me - so I figured bring it on !! I had prepared myself well with advise from my sis and a colleague who had canceled their a/cs successfully. So here goes the conversation, though shortened sort of by me:
Sales Rep(SR):Gmorning Mam, how can I help you.
Me: I would like to cancel my AOL a/c
SR: Sorry to hear that, I will try to assist you in the best possible way
Me: Thats great ! and follow to give him a/c name,and answers to his security qns
SR:I am sorry to hear that you want to cancel your a/c - why do you want to cancel it.
Me: I have highspeed by Comcast at home and so dont need dialup.The only reason I signed up was coz I was travelling.
SR: Oh I see, well thats Ok mam, coz you see AOL is a content provider and we have AOL for broadband which provides you access to premium content ( this part rather smugly) like he was giving me access to the CIA files or some porn sites or something !
Me: Thats fine, I dont use the internet for anything other than work and the occassional googling and I use yahoo etc to give me customized content
SR: Yes mam, but what about weather, news, financial stuff, etc
Me: There CNN,weather.com,wsj.com and so on..
SR: Kind of begining to give up here but still the fight hadnt completely gone out of him - oh well Mam but you have these free months I can put together a nice little email for you with all our features and then I will personally send you reminders 15 and 7 days before you start getting charged !
Me(grandly fibbing now and using the clinching statement as coached by sis): No that's all well and good but I am leaving for India on a business trip and wont be able to cancel from there so best you do it here.
SR:Oh Ok India, hmm, we have international dial up locations and for 5$ a month can give you 3hrs of dialup!!
Me: Nah thats fine - your dial up is too slow moreever I would prefer to use high speed or T1 or wireless or something since I am on an expense a/c and would charge everything to my company !
SR: Finally gave up and send here is your confirmation number, and sorry to see you leave mam!
Me: Well Ok thanks and hung up before he could say anything further !

Phew so that was my little tale of how to outfox the AOL guys!

2004-11-30T23:58:00.000-05:00

Have been having a tough couple of days at work and everywhere else- guess always feels that way after a vacation/ time off. The thanksgiving holiday was a blast, spend some good quality time with the R's who are one helluva great couple and close pals and its awesome to see them all excited about the baby ( in a few months) and also about their new home. It feels good to see close friends happy - really its amazing some people when something good happens to them I get a lil jealous and pissed off. But with them I dont feel that way at all and and I wouldnt ever want anything less than the max happiness for them.. Anyways spent so much time catching up with them that missing all the cool Thanksgiving shopping sprees - guess its Ok in a way - why load up on unnecessary stuff...:)!
Last week on the way from Rhode Island we ( hubby hereby reffered to as S) and me stopped at this outlet mall. There was a Coach factory store there and so after having worked up the guts to enter the store - I fell in love with an awesome $150 handbag.. Since my bday is in Jan I figured I can pamper myself and so S bought it for me.. Anyways I had heard legends about Coach's handcrafted purses so when I came home and open the purse this little booklet comes with the bag which says - ' This purse was made with handcrafed leather in China!!' Damn ! almost made me return it - hopefully they paid fair wages etc and the bag didnt cost Coach like 2 $.. Anyways shouldnt obsess over it - felt a lil gleeful when I saw that the same bag costs 350$ on their website.. Ok enough handbag discussion!!
Been a while since I met my sister - she lives 1 hour away from me and I havent met her in weeks.. waiting for her to graduate with her MBA so she can come chill with me for some time.. before she starts working.. graduation is a tough time , you are worried about finding a job and your whole future so much that you cant even enjoy the fruits of your hard work for the past 2 years ! Hmmm.. also Mom and Dad are waiting to pounce on her with the eternal 'matrimonial hunt' question - so good luck lil sis...

On that note will sign off - wow this was a random post ! On another note tomorrow is World Aids Day ! and so will do my part my pasting the red ribbon on my blog !

Tech stories and telecommuting

2004-11-23T09:35:00.000-05:00

So on Sunday nite ( day before yesterday) me and my husband drove to Rhode Island ( his client site). The plan was for him to go to work and me to spend some time with him in the evenings during the week and work from the hotel room during the day. So Monday arrives and he goes off to work and feel all cool and all that and then I logon using the hotel's hi-speed connection(10$/day) . But wait - I can connect to my offfice using the VPN but then kaput - the hotel makes me shut down my firewall before I can access their hi-speed connection and so I cant access my email or anything within my office even though the VPN connects. I was so mad coz I couldnt work , so after calling the Marriott's tech engineer, the hotel's high -speed company contact and my company's tech support desk I learnt that :
1. My company is a poor technology company coz they cant make me truly mobile
2. The customer /tech support at the hotel's high speed company are a bunch of bozos - they make me do stuff like is your wire connected to the out let , please turn your PC off and retry and so on..
3. The Marriott's engineer actually comes and makes me unplug my cable wire and blames the problem on my laptop and he is afraid to use the touchpad on my laptop
4. My company's tech support part 2 - says he's seen this a million times and cant fix it but shows me an alternate way to use web exchange to check email and says thats all he can do !
5. I try using dial-up but the connection is so slow it takes me 15 mins to save something on my office network!

So I spent the day pretending to work by doing documentation and replying to email. Then - in the evening I decided to call TMobile the wireless company , and for 10$/day( the same amout we were paying the so -called 'business friendly' hotel) , they give me wireless access which I could access for 24 hours from any of their 'hotspots'. They promised me the VPN would work and a hi-speed T1 backbone but I had become a technology skeptic by then.. I was thinking this is the friggin' US of A and if you cant be truly mobile then some use of a laptop and wireless access and all that hogwash!

I am more than irritated by now , but decide to give this a shot and so I go to this coffee shop/bookstore place called Borders and turn on my PC - and lo and behold one of the fastest connections I have ever used ... its wireless but faster than my comcast cable modem at home and even faster than my connection within the office LAN. I am totally impressed. So now suddenly I do believe there is hope out there - you can be wireless and mobile and I can actually be sipping that drink and working from Hawaii just as the several ads promised - well not quite ( its 38 F and cold outside and am drinking coffee but what the hell you get the idea ) !

On another note happy Thanksgiving to everyone, enjoy the holidays !

Movies..

2004-11-19T09:41:00.000-05:00

Nowadays I have started working from home for 4 days a week- so actually get time for so much more. Some people wonder how I dont get bored being at home by myself but I have always been a bit of a loner always and so dont feel the clawing need for company all the time. I go into the office once a week and that time is enough to catch up with the going-ons and office gossip. Now I dont have to sit for 3 hours in traffic and use that time to actually go to the gym or do other stuff like update my blog more regularly.So anwyays I used some of this free time to go catch Veer Zaara with my sis. The movie is really well- made and the songs are great albeit it gets a bit long-ish in the end. What I liked about it was there was no Paki-bashing and the movie was about love and not religion and politics and such.Very nice I think. Plan to go see 'After the Sunset' and 'Sideways' this weekend - lets see how that goes.I am a big movie buff but since the past year we use Netflix and me and hubby havent gone to the movies as much - beats getting a DVD in the mail I guess. I guess so far one of the best movies I have seen this year has to be ' The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and ofcourse 'Kill Bill2' - I absolutely love Quentin Tarantino - slowly buying up all his dvd's , so can watch them every now and then! I liked KB2 so much more than KB1 because it had more dialogues though I must say I liked Uma Thurman kick ass in KB1..

Nothing much happening otherwise ... weather is in the 60's here and so un-winterlike.I love it.Somedays I feel like my blogs are getting more boring by the day - some people whose blogs I regularly visit really pen down everything in a much more humorous and meaningful way - I wish I could someday get to write like them. On that note will stop - Have a good weekend folks!

And life goes on..

2004-11-17T10:41:00.000-05:00

Been a while since I did the last post- so Diwali was good albeit rainy and hence no sparklers,bombs etc. The party I was fearing ( where I had to cook for 15 people) went off without a glitch and the food came out yummy. Guess it was my coming out party about how well I can cook if I say so myself ! Ofcourse at some point in the party I started downing them Margaritas and so after the food had been served I started feeling a lil puky and sleepy. Since the party looked like it was going strong I sneaked and took a 15 min nap. Some hostess I am huh?

Just IM'ing with friend and we were discussing our new status as 'aunties' as more of our friends have babies. And how we secretly gloat and derive pleasure out of being asked for our recipes ( which we got off the internet really)...Then she said you here's the real test - what follows is an actual IM conversation:

P says:
hmm..the new nomenclature I can live with -- its the change towards aunty-ish behavior i find disturbing
P says:
before I know it, I will be like my mom!! aaaarghhh!
Me says:
yes I know..sometimes I feel I am loosing my edge and becoming less bitchy and too nice and aunt-ish
P says:
hold on to the bitchiness!! that alone is a reason to live for!!
P says:
here's the real test .. how long since you had a drinking-induced pukefest??
Me says:
actually quite a lng time back but but I did have one too many margaritas during my diwali party and so had to go and sleep it off in the middle - some hostess huh
P says:
well that sounds like my kind of hostess!!
P says:
I am too controlling to actually lose it over drink - so i had my first ever - recently - iN key west
P says:
and actually, I cant wait to do it again!!
Me says:
yes there is something fun about getting mindlessly drunk
Me says:
i miss those days
P says:
you just passed the test
P says:
if you miss it, you are still a not-quite-aunty

So there - what else the holidays are coming up from next week and in general very few people in the US will work between now and Dec 31st. I mean people keep showing up for work and all but work gets slow and so on..Plan to join my husband in Rhode Island for the first part of the week at his client site and then later head down south to Maryland to meet some friends. So all very exciting.The damn thing about Thanksgiving day other than the traffic ( coz everyone is out on the streets visiting family -kinda like Diwali ) is the fact that all stores close for 1 whole day and you better have stocked up on food for that day.My first year in the US we tried finding a place where we could eat but everything was closed.

So yesterday night at 11 pm one woman in a strangely heavily put on American accent calls and asks to speak with my husband - I told her he was away on a work trip and she says well dont you remember me I came to your wedding and so on and so forth. I told her well Indian weddings are very whirl wind and I dont remember you. Anyways gave her my husband's mobile number. He called after a bit and said he vaguely remembers her but she is coming to NYC and needs a place to crash for the weekend so she will come stay with us. Now I find this really strange - why would people in India give out our number to some strange person we barely know. I mean sometimes I dont get this Indian relatives bit. Or maybe I have become too westernized and de-sensitized ? And this person never bothered to call us in the past 6 months till she needed to come crash with us. Weird is what i thought, but maybe I am the only one with that opinion.Signing off for now !Peace!

Inadequate

2004-11-11T21:33:00.000-05:00

Its 940 in the night and I just got off the phone.Was doing a technical interview with a desi Sr. Architect in a company. Part of me was prepared for the feeling of inadequacy which always comes after a technical interview esp with desis but part of me had hoped my knowledge was not so less.Well I have interviewed before and I think my skills are decent but this person made me feel really worthless.Its as if - if there was a 100% to know about my technology I know 0.1% of it, he kept going on how it was the wrong version , the stuff we do at current co( which is a Fortune 500) co. in antiquated and so on. At one point I almost began hoping he would hang up - and when he did the tears came.I dont know why. I am determined to read up now on the stuff he said I didnt know but some of the stuff he said can only come by working hands-on.I had to write this post because I am being such a baby - this is how life is , things are not that easy and you have to fight to get ahead.I was in a comfort zone and guess got shaken out of it - but still feel like crap.Well anyways will sign off now.. Happy Diwali to you India folks its morning there now.

And so I flew

2004-11-11T10:14:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have read my past few posts - you might have read somewhere I was supposed to take a intro. to flying lesson.So yesterday it was an unusually sunny and clear day in the middle of winter ( albeit temp was 40F) and so I decided to do the lesson.

So off I go to the local flying school where they first gave me the spiel on how much it costs and how long it will take to become a private pilot - then my instructor took me to a really small plane. It was a Cessna-152 and was really small. I mean after me and the instructor sat in it - there was hardly space to move. Its only 110 HP so thats really less than a car but its so light which is why it can fly.Anyways so the instructor hereby referred to as Rob coz that was his name and its shorter to type it - showed me how to do the pre-flight check - check the plane visually for dings - check its flaps,wings,airalons(?), and the fuel for contaminants and finally we strapped ourselves in.Now in a plane there is no reverse etc - you put the key in, hit a few buttons,adjust the fuel mixture and start using your feet to control the right and left rudder to manipulate the plane on the ground. This ofcourse is not easy as it sounds so Rob ( he had dual controls) helped me out with it.Then when we were finally lined up on the runway- he asked me to pull the throttle and I actually taxied and took the plane up - once up he showed me how to steer the plane and maintain altitude.So basically we flew in the air for 1 hour - over my house and went upto the NJ shore and did a turn over the Atlantic Ocean. The view was amazing and it was pretty easy to maintain the plane straight.Rob kept saying you are unusually brave most people keep shaking and are nervous and you are doing a real good job of maintaining altitude etc ( maybe trying to con me into taking the whole private pilot lesson bit). Anyways then we finally returned to the airport - turned on our landing lights and then Rob did the landing coz that requires some skill.All in all very awesome and I think I am ready to do it again. Lets see need to figure out the finances I guess.

Other than that went to this hardcore desi area in Nj and bought mithais for Diwali ( there was a 1.5 hour wait) it was that crowded. To make matters worse, I had driven there in my friends 4X4 and when her 5 month old baby started crying hopelessly she made me drive it back. So yesterday was my day of experimental driving- from Cessna's to Isuzu SUV's.Happy Diwali to everyone - I cant wait for tomorrow and to do my own bit at light pollution here by lighting up the candles and help the greedy power companies along by switching on every light in the house.
Saturday we r hosting a post Diwali party for 12 people and I have bravely volunteered to cook instead of getting it catered - theres going to be palak paneer,aloo sabzi,dal makhani and chicken on the cards plus dessert,rice and usual condiments. I will post how that goes - I have been getting nightmares about the food tasting horrible or cooking too less :).. Just jitters I guess.Anyways signing off now.

Nostalgia..

2004-11-08T14:13:00.000-05:00

They say the best friends you make are in your undergrad - well I dont know if they really say it but I sure feel like its true. I look around and its true for both me and my husband and our resp. pals from our undergrad days. Was nostalgic and reminiscing(sp?) with a dear dear friend A yesterday. We were talking about how we r all grown up now - from the 17/18 year olds who cried when our parents left us in the hostel and went to their resp homes. Seems like a long way now 10 years. We have lived and laughed and cried and spend every waking moment together for 4 years. Even after that we moved away - it just takes 1 phone call or 1 email to reconnect back with those select few close friends ( A,A,J and P). We have been through a lot and helped each get over life when disappointments comes your way ( seeing a 0 for the first time in your exam after you have been a class topper ur whole life hits you hard).

We have done innumerable crazy things- on A's 21st bday's we managed to con one of the guys we used to hang out with to get us a 1/4 of whisky and then waited till the rest of the wing went to sleep, then to be safe we locked the doors of the remaining 7 wingies rooms (dorm mates) from outside , and then proceeded to get wasted for the first time in our lives. I dont know whose plan it was but I wonder if any of the wingies tried to go pee in the night and found their door mysteriously locked :) only to be opened normally the next morning.
We have had heartbreaks and helped each one get over them. We have had study sessions till late in the nights when no one was really studying and was gossiping about the other women who are getting phone calls from their boyfriends. Those were crazy days but these 4 women made me me. We were different in so many ways - yet crazy together. Me and A were also close to some really cool guys - but for some reason those friendships have dwindled as more people got married . Wonder what the reason for that is - I guess guys are less emotionally attached than women. I dont know what prompted me to post this but there are so many good days we had and looking back I wouldnt change one of them not even the bad ones. Its good to see we r all grown up now - married , buying houses, working professionals and some of us are even moms and moms 2 be .. so here's to you -I love you girls

Average Jane?

2004-11-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

Somewhere along the way you became average.You were the one of the best and brightest - always acing your classes,and not so bad in the extracurricular department.You had big dreams - when as a kid people asked you what you wanted to be you said bigger than what my Dad is and he was the guy one removed from the CEO.You did make mistakes like party a little more than required initially in undergrad but you did make it up and when to good grad school. You had dreams and ambitions of making it big ,going to a top B-school in the USA. But then something happened and you became stuck. You can blame it as much as you want on the economy, the dead-end job,the lack of the green card,getting older and loosing your edge but the truth remains you slacked and so there is no point complaining.You can still achieve a lot if you want but sometimes you just get stuck in the rut of work,home,cook,clean and laundry.What happened.I know I need to snap out of it but sometimes wish I had a little encouragement.Or is that another excuse.Pardon moi- I have been suffering from a strangely dark mood since the past few days and hence these depressing posts.

Election day

2004-11-02T14:39:00.000-05:00

Today is election day here in the US ( if for some reason you were hiding behind a rock and didnt know this already). My coworkers mostly are working from home coz they are all going to vote like good citizens - I am proud of them. I heard there were huge pre-dawn lines in a number of places to vote and the election is still too close to call. Although I am non-partisan on this blog I so do want one candidate to win. Considering I am 28 years old and have never voted ( kind of sad because back in India I was in hostel and so was never registered where I studied and then have been in the US and have a long time to go before I can vote), I am quite excited with the election buzz. Some funny stories I have been hearing in the news - Apparently in Mt Laurel,NJ , some one dropped table salt and people had to stop till the Hazmat team came and figured out what the white powder was. Understandably people are nervous and jumpy because in Milwaukee people reported that a women was holding a rifle and standing over an overpass when infact it was a Kerry sign. There are lot of election day blogs by real political enthusiasts so I will stop here.

I still have to schedule a flying lesson for myself - I went all determined last week and then they told me it wouldnt happen - because Prez Bush was in the vicinity and they didnt want any private planes in the air. So there - that and bad weather in the past few days ruined my flying lesson plans.

I got a new notebook at work its a D600 M Latitude with 1 G of RAM - and I am so excited with it - guess you have to be bit of a geek like me to get excited about such things. Its getting cold here now and real gloomy and dark. The leaves are all falling out and old man winter is finally here. Its also the holidays and so many of my friends are going to India for vacations - wish I could go to been 3 years since I last went home and although I have been meeting my parents every year- there is something else about eating chaat and gol gappas on the street back home..ah nostalgia. Last weekend was Halloween and I almost ran out of candy and felt like an old hag when I couldnt recognise so many of the current action figures/ princesses the kids were dressed as.
Met up with a friend at work yesterday and she was cribbing about her job - why is it that we have to keep working in jobs which make us unhappy. Does anyone have a real dream job ? Or is a dream job which makes us happy only a myth? I dont even know what my dream job should be - if I knew I would look for it. I guess I must first figure that out. So I leave you with a question - am I the only one who hasnt figured out my dream job yet - am I the only one who has dreams but no well-defined way to get there. Should I somehow stop dreaming and get more focused....

Learning to fly...

2004-10-25T10:42:00.000-04:00

This weekend my husband finally used the gift certificate for 1 hour of an introductory flying lesson I had given him on his birthday.He really enjoyed it and ever since we have both been seriously thinking of joining flight school. Still sleeping on it - partly its the cost and partly that its not so easy.You have to study the manuals, write tests and do 40 hours of instructor-led training and 30 hours of solo flying. Also its mucho $ and a commitment of 3-4 hours/week for about 6 months. But still has given me something to think about and look forward to.I have always been fascinated by flying - at one time as a kid wanted to do aeronautical engineering hoping could get a job with NASA!So will keep you posted on my blog about how that goes and if I finally enroll in flight school.
Went to the Bengali Cultural association of NJ's Durga Puja and gave Pushpanjali here.There was also a Ravan burning thingy in the local mandir but parking was a nightmare and I have heard that often if its too windy or crowded the Fire Marshall wont let you light up the Ravan.ONly in the US can such things happen !
Saw a movie 21 grams - its an interesting albeit slow movie about the intersection of 3 very different human lives.
Also finished this book called the Prison Diary by Jeffrey Archer. I believe there is a Vol 2 and 3 and 4 in the works. I have been an Archer fan so would recommend it to people who like his work. Its quite scary the way he goes from being an elite to just an ordinary prisoner. The book is a bit dark at times but is a very enjoyable read.I kept thinking how would I react had I been in his shoes. I mean he did commit a crime( although he suggests he was unfairly tried) but still being locked up for 16 hours a day and trying to keep sane can be quite an arduous task.Ok its Monday and I should get back to work- sprayed Romance( the perfume) in my eye this morning so wondering if the world should look Romantic to me ( poor attempt at a joke!) - mostly my eye is watering and some coworkers have asked me already if I have the flu ?Will get back to mundane stuff now like work coz you gotta pay those bills.

Why is it that..

2004-10-22T16:43:00.000-04:00

The only cool and true friends you made are from your undergrad and live really far away from you
You find some people absolutely annoying but you still have to be civil to them instead of asking them to shove it
You have co-workers who are not quite good but get raises and praises over you because they are more 'senior'
You feel really hungry reading up on yummy recipes on the internet
Despite your best efforts you cant write funny stories on your blog even though so there is good stuff locked up in your mind
A good deed is often not rewarded ( like you let people cut across you in traffic and they dont even wave or acknowledge a thank-you or anything and when its your turn no one lets you cut in)
Some days you just want to snuggle up with a good book but the library or book-store is closed by the time you get there
Life does not quite go as planned
Some people feel afraid to say 'NO' and some people are not ashamed to perenially keep asking favors
I can write lines of code and solve logical problems but still not have the the artistic gene in me ( like appreciating poetry, painting or playing music )
Your haircut always looks the best the day you cut it and the stylist styles it :)
Some clothes you absolutely want never fit you or look as good on you as on others..

The list can go on and on but will sign off now and head into my weekend

Dussehra and other musings

2004-10-21T14:17:00.000-04:00

Been a while since I did my last post. Well nothing much has happened so had nothing to report. Still have my job and my manager says there is 'nothing to worry'( famous last words ,huh?).Am really swamped at work - its the end of the year and plus we have a resource shortage at work.Its getting really cold now.. brr ..
Oh oh fire-alarm at work. Hmm back now and will take a minute or two to defrost myself - for some reason my office decides to have its annual fire drill on the coldest rainiest day.They make us stand outside for 15 mins and then let us in. Would it kill them to do it during the summer?
Personally though although I like Spring and Fall - I prefer the winter to the summer. Maybe its all those holidays, maybe its the holiday season, maybe its coz you can hide beneath the layers of woollens :) - I just dont know.
Its Dussehra in India but here no one even knows that we Indians have a festival.I am married to a Bong and so this year for Durga Puja I have decided to act all enthusiastic will try to wear a saree for the Durga Puja at the Bengali Assoc in NJ.Lets see how that goes. Its a little overkill coz I will probably know one other person there.But for Diwali I have called about 15 friends over and I plan to cook for all those people. If you knew me you would be worried because although I am a half decent cook - I have never entertained so many people before.Thats why I am going to try to cook 1 or 2 things beforehand so that incase stuff messes up there is always your friendly desi restaurant to order from :).
Have been watching this hilarious HBO show on DVD called 'Curb your Enthusiasm' - its really funny and goofy and I wish I had a friend like Larry David( the co-creator of Seinfeld and star of the show).
I noticed a strange thing - some of our friends have babies and they are anything from 6 months old to 14 months old.Overheard this conversation at one of the kiddies's bday party.
Mom Num 1:How old is your daughter
Mom NUm 2: She is 6 months old
Mom num 1:Oh does she crawl? My son used to crawl around and even stand up at 6 months
Mom Num 2: She doesnt crawl but she has 1 tooth- how many teeth does your son have.
Mom NUm 1 : Oh he has only 1 and he is 8 months old( looking worried here).

This comparison goes on till its time to cut the cake.Then you see the mom's and you can almost see them mentally taking notes how to out-do this party when its time for their kid's party.What is with us-I know people try to compare who has the bigger house, bigger car etc but baby's teeth and baby's crawling habits. Please some of these mom's need to live a little so they can stop comparing - because for every mom in the world no matter how her kid is - it will always be the best child.So why compare?

Anyways will sign off now - Happy Dussehra everyone - please celebrate and think of me when you eat those mithais.

Changes.. changes

2004-10-13T14:39:00.000-04:00

Suddenly everywhere around me there are a lot of changes - the seasons are changing ( is changing - grammar anyone ?) , my friends are turing from Double Income , No kids to Double Income, 1 kid( for now) , some friends are moving from apartmemt communities to their first homes and so on. Without being whiny - for now my life is constant , but hope somethings change soon.

First of all there is news of impending doom - aaagh the 'L' word has been muttered in my office - layoffs of 4 % of our workforce. I have been a member of the work force for about 4 years including assorted internships and have survived a bunch of layoffs. But I guess its only a matter of time sort of like Russian roulette - you can dodge em but you can never be safe ! So lets see how that goes. People at work are pretending like life is all ho hum and chugging along but are secretly worried about it.
My parents left on Monday - boohoo , and it was awful to see them go ; 28 years old and still cry on the airport- this time I was trying to be all strong and then my sis started crying too so the dam burst. I guess its strange when I was a teenager I used to really get upset with my parents coz I used to feel they are not letting me have enough fun but as you grow older and stay so far away from them you miss them more and more. Its really worrying for me that they r by themselves in India and their only close family is in the US. Plus I miss eating all the ma-ke haath ka khana. For 1 week atleast my fridge is all stocked - with everything from matar paneer to dal makhani to kheer. You got to love moms for that. Emotionally black-mailed my sister( and lured with bribes of food) to return to her apartment only later this week - so atleast she is around for another 2 days.

Today is also the final presidential debate - lets see how that goes - they have been interesting so far , but its funny how the candidates use every question as a chance to push their own agenda rather than answer the damn questions the moderator or audience is asking them. Anyways I cant vote in the US so for me this whole bit is like a reality show. Saw Fahrenheit 9/11 - is Ok a little too one-sided though , and the Ladykillers ( so-so) this weekend.

Had a good meeting with a real finicky project manager sometime back - he is the kind of guy who is a ' throw back' to the past - he likes his commas and spaces and full stops just right and will make you redeploy your code 10 times to just move the comma in a stupid log which no one looks at till it looks just right ! Well some could call it perfection too - I guess !

Oh boy - one of my friends just messaged me and send me this link - MBA's do make a boatload of money ( though I dont know in a case of sour grapes I think these numbers are hyped ! ) - maybe I should look into one of those.
http://biz.yahoo.com/special/bizschools04.html

Ok will sign off now - I hope I get a few more readers. So anyone who reads it please please do leave a comment - though I guess the blog is just a place for me to express myself and sometimes vent .. so well if no one reads it - its Ok too I guess. I am rambling now - so off I go.

Colleagues and office politics

2004-10-06T15:23:00.000-04:00

I wrote this whole long post and it didnt post ! Damn today is another of those days -

See I work for this pretty well-known decent sized co. in the US. For the most part the job is enjoyable ( is my first job outa school) and have been here for 3 years now - but recently the offshoring bug bit the executives. Most managers here are old fogies who became managers simply because they stayed put or were not risk-takers or were not good enough to leave during the dotcom boom for bigger better opportunities , were left behind and so by default became managers. These people are now all insecure and every now and then when you suggest something new and cool for them to do - will shy away from it due to ' budget restraint's or ' we dont want to rock the boat syndrome'. They will also get huge raises and not give the 'rank and file developers' any. I guess people are sucking it up and tolerating it because the economy is taking a kick in the ass and jobs are hard to come by.Cant wait to get back to the manager types and show em ! Why dont I leave you ask - well there are a bunch of reasons - the right opportunity being the main one and the others well cant list em now !

Also have colleagues who have started making nasty comments now - one guy calls the Indian offshoring co. a sweatshop , another guy says we will come to work on an elephant in India etc etc.. is this out of ignorance, jealousy or just a way to vent for them - its a bit odd because being an Indian - I usually dont know how to react to this - shd I say something - should I complain about their sometimes 'racist' remarks to the ethics team ? Dont know ! All I can say is waiting for the day I get to move on ( evil grin) !

Its one of those days..

2004-09-30T09:59:00.000-04:00

Feeling bluesy - is that normal . In a society where a lil Prozac can help you feel all happy and fuzzy - is it Ok to feel blue. Today is just one of those days - sometimes you look around and things are working faster for others than for you - I mean I am doing OK in my life - but I want just a little bit more - someone I know is buying a house, someone I know got their green card and someone I know just started B-school, someone I know is getting a raise. But life for me on the other hand is the great constant.. nothing changes everything is status quo. Its not like I am not happy - things can be worse - my family not doing well, me loosing my job, me being all ill and so on and so forth - but really what I am wishing for is something to change - something which I could celebrate and something which would brighten up my day :).. I am ready to work for it - but somedays I feel that I dont get the right breaks all along ? Are things taken much longer for me to be figured out than for others. I dont know.. I guess I dont have any readers on my blog - but if someone does read it - tell me its Ok to feel that way sometimes!

Every day happenings and a dose of nostalgia

2004-09-29T15:43:00.000-04:00

Back after a long hiatus of few weeks - the thing about blogging is there is so much I want to say but I dont know if I shoul say it coz what if someone I know stumbles across it ?

Here in NJ it has been pouring since yest till today morning due to Hurricane Jeanne - the whole place is flooded and soggy ! Yest went to a desi place to buy mithais and was stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours. Work has become very hectic too - with 2 project managers fighting over each other because both want me as a resource in their teams - sounds extremely flattering right ?
What else - tell me something is it normal to be jealous of others.. or do some people never get jealous ? Always wondered - as I grow older and wiser(!) I feel less bothered by what is happening in other's lives but it does bother me a a lil bit more than I show it most of the times..I think being a lil jealous or 'J' as some pimply teenages back home used to call it is part of human nature.

I saw some Hindi movies recently coz Mom and Dad are visiting from India - nowadays a lot of Indian movies have become a lil more interesting than the usual song and dance bit.

And now for some nostalgia - the other day due to a undergrad's classmate's bday - frenzied emailing ensued and one of my friend's said she was house cleaning and found our year book photos which were clicked with our mess in the background ! Ah the undergrad mess - its amazing how the food is all yummy and the mess all clean for the first 3 days during orientation when the parents are there and later how things take a turn for the worse...Cant believe we ate or not ate there for 3.5 years..sure did have some good memories though - like how I - a paneer freak used to bribe others to give me their paneer on Sundays during the special lunch and how sometimes we used to walk into the mess take one look and walk out to a restaurant to eat paneer maggi ofcourse - like that was such a healthy option :).. There r so many memories attached to my undergrad and I dont think I can probably make those kind of friends again ! If I had to go back and do it all over again - I would ( though this time would try to pull my GPA a lil bit more ! )...Ok wrote a lot .. I think I am going to go on a nostalgia trip - funny or otherwise for the next few weeks so stay posted.. Oh btw am off to Vermont to check out fall colors this weekend :)

Vacations over :(

2004-09-15T10:46:00.000-04:00

Been a while since I posted - had a wonderful and super duper relaxing vacation first in Napa Valley and then spent some time with old pals in San Jose/San Fran.. All in all - a ton of fun! But then the day I came back - my personal version of Hurricane Ivan struck - there were 100 + emails in my inbox and a whole bunch of bugs I needed to fix and such.. Anyways all's done and suddenly am feeling a lil bit vela. My parents are here too for a month and so getting yummy mithais and food to eat ! So that explains why I havent posted for so long !

BTW the other day I was hearing this thing on NPR( National Public Radio for the un-initiated) about bloggers - apparently some person did some research and they came up with some social order of bloggers - the old ones with a bunch of readers are at the very top of the virtual social ladder and newbies like me are at the very bottom :( - so I hope I can eventually get some readers and rise to the middle if not top of the social ladder - trust the media to take out the joys of small pleasures like blogging!!!

What else what else - yeah something funny from the vacation actually , it was a kind of mini-reunion of my husband and his pals from his undergrad school in India , and one day after they had lounged around and caught up with each other - they(we) decided it was time to go to San Fran and take in the sights - so about 15 people and 4 cars somehow inched towards Fisherman's Wharf ( that was the meeting point ) and once there somehow found parking and then found out that the place was too crowded due to it being Labor day weekend and all the Alcatraz trips were sold out ! Then the fun began , every pal of my husband's who is a native of the Bay area had a diff idea of what to make the we East Coasters see. So we drove to Golden Gate Park and didnt find parking there , and then we drove to Sausalito and found parking there ( but the famed Art and Wine festival there was over ) , and so successfully had visited about 4-5 parking lots of San Francisco ! We ended the day with some decent Chinese food in Sausalito bcoz the wives stepped up and asked to stop this tour of parking lots ! Anyways when I came back my colleagues asked me - did you see the sea lions in Fisherman's Wharf ( ofcourse in all the discussions of where to park and go next - my friends forgot to show me the sea lions there despite us standing there for like 2-3 hours ! ) , but still I pretended like I had seen them :).. Came back to my cube and googled for sea lions at fisherman's wharf and finally saw them through a live web cam! You can see them too :

http://www.mapwest.com/web_cam/sealions/

So basically that was the highlight of my trip - other highlights was the doing a little bit too much wine tasting in Napa Valley but thats for another day! BTW saw Passion of the Christ day before - too gory and violent for me ( and this from me - who loves Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction ! ) - really dont know what all the hype was about !

Dont want to be a behenji yet...

2004-08-31T14:16:00.000-04:00

The other day I was speaking with my one of my 2 ( or few) close friends , A and we were discussing that earlier we used to get a little pissed off when someone got a better job , success or fame. But now we feel that there r so many things more important in life - food for one. Ok Ok other than food its your health, your family, and having fun. People get so caught up in their lives that they forget to have fun. These are the years when we can make or break our careers - but when we r not exactly VP's yet we might as well have fun right ? So we have something more to tell our children - something about how we lived our lives and travelled the globe. Why should your college days be the only days to have fun ? Once you get married and start working why should you get all uptight and stop having fun ? I am not even 30 so why become all behenji like and stop partying - I mean I dont want to go clubbing all the time like a pimply teenagaer - but I would like to travel and spend more time with my buddies than I do now. And maybe get drunk occassionally ;) .. Anyways have a lot more to post but work beckons so maybe tomorrow?

Oh no... Bloggers Block already !

2004-08-26T21:43:00.000-04:00

Hmm day 2 in the life of my blog and I have nothing to write about - am I that boring , do I have no stories to tell ? That upsets me - ok let me make this mundane diary like - am very excited this week and not able to work because am off to California for a vacation with my hubby and then my parents are coming to the US for a vacation , and all of us will get some yummy food and do some sightseeing then ..Also my project went 'live ' today yeah!!!! Today my dear sis is coming home - and we plan on eating aloo parathas and boondi raita ! If you are still reading notice - food has been mentioned 2 times in the last 2 lines - what does that mean ,I am a foodie - I love to try out new foods and restaurants and although I am a decent cook it always nice to get a break and eat something else outside.

So basically I like to drop a good chunk of my hard earned money on food and find it strange when people scrimp on it - let me tell you the story of a really annoying pesky colleague I have - lets call him D for now , he has basically no friends, no really , no friends at all, and somehow because I am too nice to be rude to him he thought I am his pal. The other day he comes to my cube and and for lack of a better topic I started discussing the price of groceries with him ( why its so expensive when our salaries dont go up , the usual ranting ! ) , and then here's the killer he is like my groceries cost me 10$ max/week . Now I know that any red-blooded human cannot survive eating on 10 $ a week(in the US) , so I immediately was interested in this major cost cutting grocery plan of his - he proudly announced he buys 5-6 cans of Rajma(kidney beans) and 1 salad dressing and 2 big bags of lettuce and eats that for dinner daily ! Well sure sounds healthy right - but he is still fat ? As a lover of all things edible I am still trying to 'digest' the fact that he only eats lettuce the whole week aka rabbit like mode ...

And someone help me out here - the more I try to disassociate myself with him, the more he comes to my cube and bores me with stories like - oh that guy quit his job and made so much money , that woman bought stock and made so much money ? Really see if I care hearing tales about stranngers getting wealthier - I usually keep doing my work but he still rambles on - how do I ignore a person who doesnt get the usual hints of being ignored :( - maybe should set him up on a blind date so he will have another person to talk to - or send him to a hug party ?

This was supposed to be a post about food and pesky colleagues but it became like a major rant about a boring colleague and his conversations ! I will try to put a humorous post soon - wild stories about my undergrad days ;)...

Whats all this fuss about a name !

2004-08-25T19:46:00.000-04:00

So a few months back we had a lull at work - and as I was googling I chanced upon someone's blog , and then another and another and I was hooked. So I figured I should have one too - well am a techie and all that right ? Hence began the hunt for a name - and not any name - a cool one at that , asked everyone I knew to suggest something but no one was really interested ! Hmph ! And everyday I commuted to work ( its a 55 mile drive) I would think yeah today is the day when I will start bloggin! Well its almost Aug and 3 months since I started to 'plan' that I would have a blog ! So started trying names whatsinaname , tisonlyaname , etc and finally this one clicked and so here it is ! My very own blog - my lil place on the internet ! Dont know how many people will read it but lets see this will be a recorder of my life lived and also a recorder of things yet to come ! Think will head home now .. will pick up where I left off another day ..