My way on the highway

Today my husband and me were chatting in the evening. I was telling him about a great speaker whom I just listened to a couple of days back in a "Women at MyOffice" club meeting. He got terribly frustrated. He wondered why we had to have these women's clubs? This definitely adds to the segregation. Why be treated special? Then he went on to ranting about how women in IIT were useless and then says they didn't even look pretty. Of course that got me upset and I decided to defend my sex. After the hour long battle, we gave up and decided to talk about the N-Deal. Anyways let me not get started on that. After that I started reflecting on why these so called clubs had started. I was a part of women at school of CS at CMU as well. I think here in the US, they do see that these are ways of motivating women to get into engineering or help women at work. Yes we do see fewer women at research firms and so a club gives them a boost. Though I hate to agree with the husba...

This is something absolutely personal that I am sharing on public space. Buh....Hmmm...Ommm..... I sometimes get really jealous when I look at glossy pictures of people having fun. There are these bunch of people from my past life who I have absolutely no relation with. These people constantly seem to have fun even now. Let me be more specific, they were the "cool" bunch in one of the institutions that I studied at. I was the kid who was there but not quite. If you know what I mean, the dorky kid but not quite. It's been a really long time after that period of my life has passed. However, I still get all worried and would like to have the same kind of life they have. It's this yearning to be "in", to fit in. I mean I fit in at work et all. But it's still not that cool kind of fitting in. It bothers me that I've not grown out of it. I mean I am 26 for God sake. Why do I still have those pangs? Will I grow out of it? I probably won't. That I am sur...

I was all charged up for a one to one battle with my boss as I prepared for my annual appraisal. I went in practicing the speech that I had prepared. I put on my serious contemplative look. I was in for a battle. I enter the room and he gives me this great speech about how great I've been to the team. A wonderfully written note and a great bonus. I retreated like an animal with my tail between my legs. I added of course that I would not do UI work anymore. He said he only asked me to do that as I was the only one on the team, who had used that UI component. So Life is better now......I'm stumped.

The bright spot in my life now is the weekend. I mean it was like that before too but now that S is here there is some force to push you out of the house. Last weekend I went to cloud lan canyon to celebrate S's birthday. It was so very different, a nice 8 mile hike and we reached a scenic spot. The canyon expanded into a vast expanse which was Tennessee. At the very spot S cut the cake I baked. It was quite nice. Quite a different birthday. The fall colors added to the beauty. We watched Michael clayton in the evening and then went over to another cake cutting ceremony. Of course sunday came and I slept. My body was too tired to do more. Atlanta has a new Saravanabhavan. The crowd to get in was a mile long. I was losing my patience but except for the wait, the dosais were great. Of course SB is only good for the dosais. Other things aren't that good. The bisibela was a disappointment. Well that gets me thinking, woodlands is probably the best place for bisibela. Anyway talkin...

I remember this line being repeated by one of our teachers back in school in madras. It's been with me all these years and I think of it every time my life changes so dramatically. I'm probably one of those few who had to deal with change earlier than most of my school friends. Cbe was a dramatic change from madras, bombay a huge change from CBE and SSN and Pittsburgh, huge changes from what I've ever seen. Now I'm married. I'm actually a Mrs! Of course I have not changed my last name. I have not moved to a new town or found a new job but I have an entire new person in my life whom I meet during weekends. It's tough to suddenly do all this traveling and all the expenses. It's a little overwhelming. Before the wedding we were meeting twice in a month and now it's twice for each person to travel each month. I also feel guilty as I have no time to catch up with any of my friends in the US. They probably all think I'm a mean, self-centered pig. If any ...

It's been ages since I wrote on this blog and it seems almost strange to start typing after so long. Since su and others have been bitching, I decided lets just try. So the big thing that is happening in my life is that I'll be Mrs P in less than a month. I cannot believe it. It does not feel very different because my life is not going to change post September. I'll be in Houston still and S in Atlanta. Of course the commuting is going to be crazy. Getting married seems to be like a disease. Everyone is getting hitched. There are just two people from my undergrad group who are left to tie the knot. A lot of people from my school too have got married. Last month was A. Before that S. R will be getting married next year and I heard the other R too. Gosh it's crazy! I guess in India the chances of finding a lonely person is quite remote. If anyone is lonely they are most probably hooked to another person by family or friends. This is what happens. However in America th...

It was a dream come true for me. I had an opportunity to go to england last week and knowing me, I jumped at it. I spent four days at gatwick for the visualization conference and spent two days seeing the sight and sounds of london and england. It's a very beautiful country. You have the ultra hip modern city london which has all the buzz around it and then the sleepy towns like portsmouth. London feels like being in any big city in any part of the world. The subway system reminded me of new york. Bond street was like fifth avenue. The singers in the subway reminded me of the singers in bombay's local trains. The only difference being the singers in london seem suede:) The love of my life pointed that out when I was gloating about that. I walked along hyde park and thames and was grinning like a jackass. All the books I had read were coming alive. As we drove along the rolling meadows there were familiar scenes from james herriot. Clapham junction as S pointed out was in sh...

I was at ULL at Lafayette for my friend's graduation last weekend. It was a very different setting. Almost felt like they had transported the computer science department from india in lafayette. This does go to show that we Indians are definitely the majority when it comes to getting a computer science degree in America. Nice to see R and her friends bonding together. D and me had good fun making our side comments about the alma mater song and the snooty woman who thought she was God's gift to mankind. Phew! I never understand how some women can be so mean. I wonder whether she was intimidated by my looks:) (Well high hopes). Anyway R was so sweet and she went out of her way to make sure we felt good. She has some really nice friends and they really love her. Anyway my life is always filled with strange incidents that strike me. Only me! So we were staying at this hotel over night. I woke up early next morning and went out of the room to drink some water from the water fountain...

I was deeply upset when I heard that Chandramohan committed suicide. He was someone I met when I went to India in June. We went tennis shopping and caught up at mocha. He would have been the last person that I would have thought would kill himself. But he did. Really sick! You never know what happens in those last crazy moments. It has made me realize the importance of life and how it's important to cherish every good moment. My mentor at work had a heart attack. He's better now. I just visited him today at the hospital. I heard this soon after I came back from thanksgiving. I just don't understand life anymore. You never know what will happen. It just suddenly hits you. I am thankful to God for all the happiness I've received till now. I hope that I will be strong enough to handle other major difficulties in life. I had a beautiful thanksgiving. I met up with my favourite girlfriends in charlotte and atlanta. I bond a lot with my friends from undergrad and they will re...

Yes he really is God. Today I went to watch a superb match between two older tennis players. Older yes but also legendary. I went to watch the standford cup at the River oaks country club. First let me fill you in about the nature of the club. I've never seen such grandeur in my life. It was one of the most upscale places that I've been too. I was the only brown person amidst the predominantly white "hoity toity" group. It felt---NICE. As I was explaining to my parents, it was madras club multiplied by 100 times and the locality was boat club road multiplied by 100 times. Fabulous is the only word that comes to me. The end result of the two setter was that Goran won. BUt Mcenroe made sure he gave him a run for his money. It was superb to see such classy stylish rallies and John's great returns. He sure is one helluva fit 47 year old. However his attitude was still the same. He was grouchy from the word go. All the ball boys and girls were shivering. He screamed at...

I think it's easy to say..."well google it and find out"! Google can be so misleading at times. I've really learnt it the hard way. Your search criteria is so important. If that's not good, you're dead meat. So this is what happened. My company uses visual studio 2005 with team system for versioning. However I found that some of the documents created under the documents folder is VS were not version viewable. So I decided to ask my boss. Of course the reply was he had not looked into it but it would be a good thing to research. So I researched and google searched. This pointed me to the MSDN blogs and there was another person who had the same problem. He very confidently wrote that VS did not support version controlling for word docs. However it was possible to do version controlling through the share point portal. Wonderful! I thought I'd found the answers and so armed with proof showed off to my boss. Oh not so fast ME! I should have known. So my boss co...

Another week rolls by and I'm amazed at the people I meet. It's official- The highpoint of my life now is kickboxing. Turbo Kickboxing is simply superb. It gives you a power surge. I mean you can pump all that frustration down with those punches and crunches. I'm really unsure about the calories I'm loosing but all I know is "I'M HAVING FUN". There are these amazingly thin and superly energetic women, who come for the class. I wonder why? Don't they know that they give us a complex. I have to be the fattest person in the class. I never thought I was so overweight but you go in to the class and you realize that your fat is so becoming.....if you know what I mean. It's like another person. Jokes apart I love it because I would prefer this anyday to the boring treadmill and cycle. This week I attended a class called the intro to RDM. The training course is a must for people in our company. The course content wasn't very applicable to me but I love...

June has lit my up my life. I love her!

I absolutely love the radio station 93.7. It's houston's classic rock station and it's called the aero. If anyone from houston, has not listened to it, I recommend it. Unlike other stations like 104.1 KRBE which repeats the same songs, this one picks a special artist each night and plays hits from them. It is a rock education. On saturday they had cream classics. I was introduced to this band a couple of months back but 93.7 goes on to give a history. Sunday was led zeppelin. Monday was aerosmith. Today it's a mixture of eric clapton and crosby stills. This group is really fantastic. I like the music. It's got an older feel to it. The lead guitars are amazing. In fact most of the times unless one has an ear for the lead guitar, you can never hear it. Somehow maybe it's sign of growing old but I like more earthy music. Gone are the days of "chemical brothers" and "prodigy"! In fact I'm a little ashamed that I listened to that group with t...

This has to be an experience which has to go down in my experience book. I could actually give Lord Alfred Tennyson, a run for his money:) Well so this friend of mine A said we should go out somewhere in jersey city. I should see the sights and sounds there. A was like "We should go to this gay bar. My friend has been asking me and I'm curious to go". I :"Babe I have a flight to catch and the final straw for me would be to go to place where not a single man would be interested in me!!!" A: "Come on..what are you worried about...someone hitting on you...HE HE..WONT HAPPEN". Well curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check out this experience. I was a little worried. I did not want to see men making out. I was really freaking out but of course, I am so used to putting on the fake, really cool demeanor. And A and me actually dressed up to go to this place. Why even bother(I think now)?? Well so we finally arrived at THE PLACE. I was really surp...

That describes my current state of my mind. I am happy and content. I thought I should blog when I'm like this because I don't want to seem like a whiny blog. I had a beautiful weekend just doing nothing after my hectic new york trip. New york and manhattan is amazing. I wish I could be there. Would have probably been there if I was working for one of those financial firms:) He he man is never ever satisfied. But the pulse of that city is simply superb. One has to be there to feel it. It truly is beautiful. I bought myself a CD player and radio and am quite kicked about it. It's in my loo and I love hanging out there now. It's super duper cool. It's such a destresser. I have aroma therapy candles and music and my shower gel! Bliss is all that comes to my mind. I can go on and on and on. I think the happiness is having a directly propotional effect on my weight. Yes it's increasing and I don't like it. It's quite scary. I hopefully should enroll in a gym ...

This weekend confirmed what I always knew. There is nothing like girlfriends hanging out. I've always had the most fun with my girl friends. This weekend was no better. I met SU after 5 years and we just reconnected. No ackwardness and we just took off from where we left off. It's so amazing to have such a comfort level with people. It's great to be yourself and su you really are the best! I also had something significant happen to me this week. It was my sign to move ahead in life. I thank that special person. That person is really a decent soul. May you find happiness and remain like this forever:) I wish you all the very best in life. You deserve it. Life goes on in it's hectic pace. There is so much to do. I've found a tennis buddy and we've been playing now for three days in a row. I hope this continues ...It's the best form of exercise. Especially for me with so much food around!!!

It pains me to see this subtle discrimination. I have not seen it maybe because I was transparent to it before. Coming from India one does not really see racism because everyone is the same color. It's not like I've faced anything but I hate the way people behave. I mean educated people questioning their safety because they are surrounded by black people. I mean I travelled half way across the world to see how it would be to work in multicultural teams and tp socialize with people from different backgrounds. Ofcourse nothing happens at work but to see people talking like this hurts me. Strip away the color and everyone is the same. Everyone is bothered about their families, loved ones, salaries, work, love life etc etc - So why think that you're some gifted race??? It also pains me to see Indians making such comments. Your brown for godsakes and you talk about hispanics and blacks!!! This is all a little strange to me. I remember hearing my little niece from england referri...

I am quite fed up of the amount of work that one has to do here. I mean one has to be so alert otherwise, one would get cheated. I am so fed up of being so alert. I've already lost so much in so many stupid deals. I'm unsure whether I will learn from all this. I've had a raw deal in many many things that I've bought over the past few years. I get hurt by my stupidness but I guess one should just go on. I spent 24$ on a local call in india using my credit card. Can you imagine how stupid I was? Anyway now looks like cingular might cream my ass with another deal! I'm the only moron who has paid 50 bucks for a time warner installation. Only idiot who paid 50$ every month with an old phone! Only one to pay a non refundable deposit on my apartment!PHEW!PHEW!PHEW! On a brighter note other things seem okay. I went to the museum of natural sciences with a colleague from work. It was nice. I think one can only really enjoy a museum if you go with another lady. Gosh last week...

I find it increasingly difficult to blog about my life. I don't know why maybe because whatever said and done this is a public blog and people seem to quote from it. So I've been seriously having doubts whether I want to blog anymore. It was nice initially but as I move into a new phase in life, I feel like I would like to open up more but people talk of spies and all that jazz. Woes of people losing their jobs because of blogging. So call me chicken or whatever but I'm going to be more careful and therefore curb the freedom to blurt out. Work is going on well. However I seem to already have some minor conflicts or difference of opinions with some people. They are unwilling to take me seriously because of me being fresh out of college and most people here have tons of experience. Anyway it's going to be a great learning experience. As the days pass I feel that I'm learning more about people. I am dying to write about it but unfortunately I'm sure atleast one of ...