All Hail the Tag!

I almost could not believe my eyes when I read this, but Penny Lane, girl, you rock! Just when I was beginning to doubt if more than two people ever read this blog, I have truly and honestly been given my first ever tag! OK so the deal is that I have to write 8 things about myself. I sort of did this (I wrote way more than 8 then!) in an earlier post a few months ago, but in the true spirit of tagging, I’ll do it afresh. (I’m SO excited!) So here goes:

1. I am extremely jet-lagged right now. I believe that the body can only take so much of time-zone-skipping at a time, and I think I’ve been pushing that more than I ought to in the last one year. But I’ve had a blast traveling – I just love traveling – and I guess I always will.
2. I am getting married four days before I turn 26, in a few months’ time. And I am way excited about that too (its increasing day by day), because I am going to FINALLY be with the one person I have ever wanted to, and in the bargain my parents are finally going to get their wish, and my grandparents too, and so everyone will be happy.
3. Really, REALLY, people, if you ever think of getting into a long-distance relationship then let me know because after close to five years of never being in the same city and STILL surviving mine, I think I’m something of a pro at it. No kidding!
4. I will probably never ever be reed-thin even though I desperately try to at least twice a year. I just love yummy food and have a weakness for desserts in particular. Even simple food like good ol’ curd-rice and pickle can make me sigh with happiness (especially if its polished off after a good night of partying)
5. Drinking is never fun without friends. On the same note, drinking can be quite uncomfortable with relatives. Ha-ha. Make sure you distinguish between the two. If a relative IS a friend or vice-versa, then that is one hell of a lucky situation. How does this piece of advice relate to me? Because I have drunk without friends so many times I know that the ‘it’ factor is always missing from those experiences. And I have also had a couple of very uncomfortable drinks with relatives.
6. I used to wear glasses with ugly plastic pink frames in classes 4 and 5. And then I wore slightly better looking pink metal frames in classes 6 and 7. And now I hate the colour pink. Period. Most shades of it, anyway. I do wear cool-looking blue frames now though, when I don’t wear my contact lens that is. I think that I think they’re cool now because V thinks I look nice in them. So I guess beauty in this case lies in the eyes of the beholder!
7. I did well in school and college without really having to try too hard, and teachers liked me big time. The funny thing is all that used to matter to me then, but now I couldn’t care less. Sometimes I think I’m angry at them for not giving me REAL education. I don’t remember shit of what I learnt between classes 8 to 12, for example. And I got State ranks!
8. I am a very moody person. I make no apologies about it, because to be honest, I don’t NEED to be liked by everyone, and I don’t like everyone either. It’s a bit impossible. If you liked everyone you ever met, there would be something wrong with you, if you ask me. I used to try and be one of those. They’re all wrong, because they’re trying too hard. (Can you believe someone once said that about me? In college. That I ‘tried too hard’. I used to think that was one of the most cruel things I heard about myself then. It was probably true. Its not anymore).

Penny, you’ve disabled comments but in case you’re reading this…happy belated birthday and may your house be full of all the furniture you ever wanted by your next birthday! (That includes the hep plasma TV and all that stuff that (ahem!) only homeowners really invest in!) And SublimePattern, Skepsi, Sharad, The Smugbug, Vikram and the Desi Bridget Jones Diary, I hereby tag you all!

The power of words

On the flight back to India, I watched one of those feel-good movies called ‘Akeelah and the Bee’ – for the second time. Due to some error, the airline played the same movie on the flight to Portland as well. I didn’t have a complaint though. The story of a tenacious African-American eleven-year-old from Los Angeles in her quest to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C, it reminded me of my own days as a Spelling Bee contestant when I was in high school. Watching the movie throw up words I am unfamiliar with even today, at the quarter-century of my life – prestidigitation, argillaceous, ratatouille for example – it reminded me that education is not a means to an end but a journey in itself. I had no coach when I went (and won!) my Spelling Bee, and I still recall a conversation with a friend who asked me what I was doing to learn so many long and difficult words. My answer: nothing. It was the accumulated knowledge gleaned through years of reading, something I am indebted to my parents to, for inculcating in me.

The quote where Akeelah’s coach encourages her to believe in herself when she is besieged with self-doubt and lack of confidence, which I found out just today is taken from Marianne Williamson’s ‘A Return to Love’, is something that I would like to put up here just for everyone to read, let filter through their minds, and chew on. I only wish I had read it earlier. It’s taken me years to gain the strength that these words instill with just one reading.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people will not feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It's not in just some of us;
It's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

A little bit of air on earth...

One of the things I like about this place is the air. It is pristine. It smells like sparkling white sheets in a five-star hotel bedroom. Even better than that, it smells of Nature - pine trees, bubbling water in a brook and the vast sky, overcast with rain clouds or happy sunshine. Water and the sky don't really have smells of their own, but if they did, this is what I think they would smell like. It really does add a spring to my step. Un peu d'air sur terre (as the French clothing company's tagline goes) really makes a difference, especially if it revitalises you like this.

This picture was taken in June, and its not so sunny or warm over here now, but the air is certainly as fresh!

Is work worship?

I finally told my boss that I’ll be quitting work in November. I felt awful doing it, but as luck would have it, it came up in the most unusual way. I thought I’d let him know at the end of this month, but yesterday we were enjoying some juicy cheeseburgers at Red Robin in Beaverton, Ore., (aside: Red Robin gives McDonald’s a run for their money in the burger department) and he asked me when I was planning to get married. I ‘fessed that January was the month, and then my team-mates started cracking what they thought were jokes about my impending resignation. Imagine the look on their faces when I very seriously said that they had actually hit the nail on the head and I was really planning to leave! They said they’d have no more of Red Robin, ever. Ha. But knowing the bottomless pit that their stomachs are and their fascination for Red Robin burgers, that’s highly unlikely! :-)

I’m trying to understand why I feel bad in the knowledge that these will be my last few weeks at work in India. Is it because I like my job? Or working in general, i.e keeping myself busy? Or because I like these people (even if they get on my nerves once in a while?!)

My first corporate job is coming to an end. The impending close of another phase in my life.

But life, as they say, will go on.

Poppin and popout :-)

Just thought I'd dust some of the cobwebs off this blog o' mine.

I didn't know till last week that a cousin of mine reads this blog (probably 'used' to read, thanks to the inactivity). I had no clue till then, and I wasn't quite sure whether I should panic or not. (Did I reveal any extremely secret secrets on my blog? Uhmm..Ahmm...AAAAAA!!!!!). No, I'm OK. Nothing scandalous. Boring, huh?

I'm in a good mood today, though I have the prospect of staying late at work staring me in the face. Still, it doesn't matter. Oh, and I HAVE to insert a couple of these here because I think they are such fun (link via Penny Lane's blog) :



Au revoir for now, folks!