My way on the highway

That's the only word that comes to my mind. It's my third week at H and I am getting used to everything. There is a new office, a new boss, new friends, new home, new bedsheets, new utensils, new laptop(at work)...PHEW!! The list goes on and on. I almost had a mild heart attack last week as I could not find my way back from walmart. Well anyway finally managed to call a cab and come back home. I was wallowing in self-pity and felt quite bad for myself. But once I came back home and made myself mango juice in my new blender:), I was back to normal. All it takes to cheer me up is food! I guess I'm really an easy girl to please.Pretty low- maintenance! Anyway so I've joined a non profit organization here which does some social work with NGOs back in India. I figured I'd be happy and will get to meet some like minded people. I've met a couple of nice people thru this organization. I've played tennis over two weekends with one of the guys I met thru this. This wi...

It's my first week in Houston and what can I say?? IS it hotting up? Yes it is and I really am looking forward to the action. My mood swings every day. I am really brave in the morning then things go haywire. I get all worked up and scared and wonder whether I can manage on my own. Then my inner voice gives me a little shout and tells me "this is why you came here to take a job. To be independent remember???". Then I am back to being tough. It really does not make it easy to know that my two best friends in texas are moving out of this state. Indie leaves by the end of the month and sri will move soon. Man!!! Why does GOD do this? My training starts first thing on Tuesday. I am reporting to work on Monday. I have fixed up a studio apartment for the time being. This is fully furnished and a girl from office lives there. She also takes the bus and is Indian. That will help in the beginning till I get my bearings. Houston is a place that is really huge and everyone drives. T...

The fag end of my holiday is being spent doing all good things like watching movies and FIFA world cup with friends. There is so much of bonding when one does this in groups. I watched a cheesy, cheap and gross tamil movie called pudupettai. Actually it wasn't as bad as I expected. The sad part was the way they objectified women. They are the "play things". My blood boils everytime that happens. It's quite sad but hey it's also the reality. Dhanush looked quite sick but hey what can you do about a guy like that. The good thing is he does not act like a hero. And there are people making references to his stature throughout the movie. He is the butt of all the jokes. Sneha looked nice but the other lady Sonia Aggarwal looked plastic. Yesterday I watched a visually pleasing film "fanaa". Kajol looks gorgeous. Aamir Khan does not. Manish Malhotra does really know how to make his women look hot. I did not see why the movie had such bad reviews. It was quite ...

She was sure of herself. She thought she was. She wasn't actually. She's always been dilly dallying. She never really knows. Atleast now she's sure. She tried. It did not work. At the end she is liberated. She is like a free bird. Yet she thinks that maybe things would have been different...NAh...no point thinking..she's never been one of those really analytical types. Of course she is a little hurt. The message was loud and clear. She would have been stupid not to read the signs. She was expecting it. In fact this is how she wanted it to end. Still "hope" was one thing pandora locked up when she closed the box. So she hopes! I've told her it's no use. She knows it's of no use but she still hopes. I want to squash all her hopes. Tell her it won't happen. But she is a dreamer and she dreams. I don't want to be the spoke on her wheel. Let her dream. Sadly for her this dream will definitely not come true.......

I had this opportunity to go on a war ship cruise into the bay of bengal the other day. I seized the opportunity. Who wouldn't? It was simply out of the world. The Indian Navy chief at madras is known to my dad and he had some space on his ship and the jobless one was sent to see the splendour of the ocean. So one friday morning I set out to the navy docks at INS adyar and set aboard sukanya. She was beautiful. Gigantic but very well poised. She was truly a class apart. I could imagine her if she were a person wearing a crisp cotton saree, a beautiful handbag, lovely sandals and neatly dressed. I imagined that she would be one of those ladies who would carry out intelligent conversations. Anyway so we boarded sukanya and travelled her length and breadth. I checked out her quater deck. A helicopter was there resting but ready to take off. The navy crew showed us many operation. Take off and landing of helicopters aboard sukanya. Firing from HMG shooting a rocket target. That was rea...

That just had to be my blog title. I have been having such a blast here that I am seriously rethinking on my plans of going back to the US of A. I guess it is always nice to be on holiday:) From day one I have been not only visting temples and relatives but also actively partying. I've just come back from a bangalore darshan and that city never ceases to amaze me. It is definitely a paradoxical city. On one side you have these beautiful IT offices and clubs and discos and investment banking firms and shopping malls..you get the picture right? The roads and the traffic on the other hand suck! I wonder why all that money cannot be pumped into the roads? Madras is definitely better in those terms. Anyway apart from all that India still does rock. I mean I am only reminded of the line in Shantaram(a good read by the way) "In india people know how to love". I really will miss all the love and affection. I am sure that's what is going to make me come back. Anyway this stin...

I have just finished packing my whole house and will be leaving to India tomorrow. I just realized that my whole life I've been riding on pure luck. I am so bloody irresponsible. Can you believe it that I packed all my important documents in my check in luggage???? Thank God I had this saviour in the form of aunty K. She just wanted to look at my stuff before I left. She was shocked. She was really sweet about the whole thing. She was like "You actually packed your originals in that??". Me:"YEs aunty the degree is too big to fit in my hand luggage" K aunty: "What happens if you loose your luggage?" ME:"Um..huh? That can happen(YEAH DUMB ASS)?" So now I'm in this deep introspective mood. I've done this many times before but I've not really learnt from these lessons. I hope I can change over a new leaf and become more responsible. If that does not happen I wish I have someone like K aunty, amma or someone else. This is all I can blo...

I've just finished watching "pretty woman" for the zillionth time. I realized something after watching it, we're all the same at the base of everything. I mean women will always get all dewy eyed and want to have that perfect guy at the end of the day. Guys will never answer well when they're watching a match. Any guy! I mean just have a phone conversation with my dad when west indies and india play and it can be quite frustrating. I had similar experience when I was speaking to this other friend the other day. He said okay to everything I said. So my conclusion at the end of all this is that one just needs to look at the critical signs to find out about the person. I've graduated and things seem to be slowly falling into place. I will be going home. I cannot wait to hug my mom and sing along with my dad. Then of course I can't wait to see my sister. I can imagine us talking all night. Such fun! Gymkhana club, tennis, barista, driving down mount road, beac...

I seem to be having a blast for the last couple of weeks and it just seems very surreal! One more weekend to add to the list of great weekends I've been having. This week I was at charlotte for my friend's graduation and boy did we have fun! Yesterday after the graduation ceremony we went to this real upmarket place for dinner. It was called "blue". I mean it was like "The Patio" of charlotte. For lack of better comparisons. Though I still think Patio is a shade better:) They had a jazz quartet which was playing along. I really loved it and they played some really nice songs. IT was nice to hear "killing me softly" after ages. I think there is some raw charm in good old strumming. It is so very mood uplifting. So anyway we had ordered Don perignon (250 $- OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD). Then there were all sort of great starters and the head steward there obviously loved the sound of his own voice, so he was droning away to glory! The vegeterian food was q...

  We sure have come a long from the time that was taken. We're almost like soul sisters. If there was one great thing about going to PSG it was meeting friends like you. Now that you're going to graduate and moving to the next phase of life I hope I'll be there to share your joys and sorrows. My dear "123" hope you get all that you deserve! Hope we'll be able to talk about all this to our kids and grandkids:) 

I have not really read any of the reviews. But I decided to have a girls day out out. So on the cards was shopping and a movie. My room mate agreed as her boy friend was out. Phew! Thank god for small mercies. One needs a good saturday especially after a depressing friday! So the movie was quite nice. It was a really racy movie. I love these action packed dhishum dhisum and sleek pictures. Tom cruise was just right. Even his girliness did not put me off. Those eyes looked just lovely this time. The gadgets and the guns were just okay and I don't think they were as good as the previous movies. STill there was some charm in the movie. I liked the execution. Especially the last scene at the shanghai towers. So fast and so good. Precision is the word that comes to my mind when I think of this movie. It all timed:) Plus Jonathan Rhys Meyers is hot. I loved his cute australian accent. Can't there be more indian men like this. Makes it so much easier for us girls:) I've seen him i...

Why lord do I have to be so bothered about the way I speak? But I do. From time immemorial I've always wanted to speak really well. I was in the toastmasters club when I was in the 5th standard and then I would take part in all debates and oratorical things in school. I always wanted to be the best speaker. But life seldom works out like that. I just gave my final presentation today for one of the courses that I'm taking at school. I'm the only indian in class (err technically..there is another third generation indian american so can't count him) and there was a visible difference between the way they spoke and the way I did. The Americans delivered effortlessly and seemed more informal but I felt mine was more practised. I would like to come off as more informal but somehow that never happens. WHY LORD?? WHY?? Maybe I expect too much of myself because after the presentation my prof and TA said "good job". But somehow I was not so sure. I would like people to ...

Never in my life have I thought it's cool to be drunk. There is always such a hue and cry being made about being cool by partying. Today we had the annual GSA wine tasting party. IT was a classy event. There were a fine selection of red and white wines and also a jazz quartet. Unfortunately, I got stuck with a bunch of people who's only aim in life was getting drunk on wine:) IT was funny upto a point. After that it was simply chaotic. Everyone was suddenly talkative. To top all of this, I was incharge of getting nine drunk people home. Never have I been so stressed in my life before. I thought I would get high blood pressure. Now in hindsight it is funny. I mean all those people were acting wonky. I over reacted before but now it is fine. I guess people want to loosen up. However, I don't think I would ever do that to myself. Never!

School is finishing up and generally emotions are running high. There are a lot of things to do. ON top of all this I have been wondering about the human psyche. The words that come to my mind is the "power game". Some people want to always be at the higher end of the equation. Well it's not possible always. I mean the people who generally make the effort to always keep in touch also loose out sometimes. I mean they're also tired. How many times can they alone keep it going? How much of work all these things are! Is ego everything in life? Or is this some sort of message that others have to read. A really close friend of mine is going thru a rough patch now because she was at the lower end of the equation. I always told her it was fine and you do not have to go by book. She was fed up of the mind games and the moves she had to play. It was like constant game of chess. My sister often gets into these introspective moods and I used to blame her then for over analyzing. ...

Today was the cylab poster presentation. It went off really well. Cylab works in close contact with the department of defense and homeland security. So there were people from there and company sponsors. It was nice to explain our project to boeing and JP morgan chase. They were pretty excited about it. I guess it made also confident about my product. I think it has a lot of potentital. It was also a proud moment for me to be amongst such great people. It also increased my own confidence. I mean I can hold my own against a lot of these guys. I also found some commendable work being done with eclipse plugin development at the conference. I wish I could do more of that at my work place. But I'm not sure if western geco does that. I did get an offer from another company too. It does seem so surreal now. I hope I'm not suddenly struck by some lightning:) As my saying goes "when it rains it pours and when it doesn't rain it doesn't pour!". Amma and Dad will be prou...

When will it stop? I'm always irked by it. I wish I could forget but alas that never happens. I think people who think too much are plagued by it but also there are so many loose ends to tie up and the fear of the unknown. There is a mixed feeling of excitement and anticipation. God know what will happen! God knows...oohhhh I wanna break free. I had a wonderful two days at chicago. It was good to bond with friends from undergrad. They'll always be the best. It was nice to see two people so much in love. I mean not in the lovey dovey sense, just living together as two beings. Nice I really liked it. I mean I always felt that was something that would be so distant. To see it happening to my friend made me suddenly feel all grown up:) Does one really require company in life? I don't know. I think it's nice to have someone in your life but one also needs to be ready to make that kind of commitment. I guess not everything is rosy but hey when was life like that:) Suddenly a...

As Mahesh Bhupathi said, "When the chips are down you can't trust anyone better than Paes to do the job for India in Davis Cup". So we beat Pakistan and Paes proved that killer instict and confidence can get you thru a game. Good Job Paes! So there is a fair amount of effort being spent these days on counselling friends who have got hurt by their stupid boyfriends. This is to all those women who get hurt by those mean men! If you want to give them the message then there is no better way than quoting the following lines from Alanis Morissette. "And I'm here to remind you Of the mess you left when you went away It's not fair to deny me Of the cross I bear that you gave to me You, you, you oughta know" If he bugs you too much you can say "I never really loved you anyway":) And girls say this to yourselves "I will survive"!

I remember this being the favourite piece in "The hindu". I always wanted to share this excitement with my family and would get scoffed at for getting excited over that in the newspaper. Anyway I suddenly thought of that after reading bbc.com. Today is the April 8th. ON this day in 1994 curt kobain died. It was quite shocking for the grunge community. I felt a personal loss because my "grunge" cousins were so hurt on this day. I never understood why they were sad but I felt sad too. Maybe because they kept repeating "little girls" won't understand. Anyway he adds on to the list of artists who died young! In other news, Paes and Bhupathi helped in putting India in a better position by winning the doubles at the Davis cup. I am unsure about the reverse singles though. I never liked the way Paes handles singles. He is too much of a doubles player to play singles. I think he has lost his nimbleness and whenever I used to watch him at the Goldflake open an...

"Almost heaven, west virginia Blue ridge mountains, shenandoah river Life is old there, older than the trees Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze Country roads, take me home To the place, I be-long West virginia, mountain momma Take me home, country roads" Yep I visited John Denver's west virginia over the weekend. I understood the mood behind the song. It's really beautiful and had a typical country setting. After hiking through the dense forests of cannon valley, I sat at one place in the middle of the forest. I just observed the trees and the mountains. It was calming. I never thought I was a nature person but the surroundings probably does that to people. It's a must visit place. I really had a blast. Of course I did a lot of other "city" like activities like swimming, sauna, playing pool and partying:) Phew a hectic weekend! I need another weekend just to unwind.

How cool is that? I hope this bullishness continues:-D ET