Everyday Life As Is

Gotta be a better Ambassador

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Sun, 23 May 2010 04:49:00 +0000

A week back, I was having lunch with my colleagues and one of my colleague mentioned that she loves Indian food and that just yesterday she had an eggplant dish.

She couldn't remember the name of the eggplant dish she had, and being the only Indian on the table, I believed it was my responsibility to help her out, so I started with my list......"Beigan bharta", "Beigan curry", "Beigan ..... right then my Chinese colleague said "Beigan Masala!" and my American colleague went.....YES! I sat there feeling dumb, embarrassed, looser.... I can add more synonyms to it, but you got the idea I believe.

So when yesterday, my manager was scanning through resumes for potential candidates we are looking for, to fill a position in my team, and asked me, "How is Anna University?, Is it a good one?". I very confidently said, "Hmmmmm....I have never heard of it". She said, "If you have never heard of it then it might not be a good one". I said, "Yeah, may be, there are lot of new schools coming up in India".

Out of curiosity, I searched for it on the web and was one more time dumb founded. Anna University was ranked top 5 in India, even above IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur! I felt like jumping in the sea, but all I could do was accept my ignorance. When I told her that it 's top ranked University, she gave me a glance of, "How could you have not heard of it" and smiled.

I got up, went to the kitchen, poured myself some green tea and decided that I am going to be a better ambassador to my country. So, I started getting current by reading Indian New papers online and all I could get current about was politics and Bollywood.

Say, that is why it is called General Knowledge (GK).....

PS: Please leave your comments, if any on the blog itself. Thanks....

Confession

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:59:00 +0000

Before we had our second baby recently, it used be a regular point of discussion among us friends, if one should go for a second kid. Given we would always be struggling with taking care of our first one, having another, had to be a well thought, discussed and consulted decision. And for the outcome of the discussion, it would always be that two kids can entertain each other and you are "off the hook" pretty much. Especially coming from parents of two kids {and more}, we fell for it, literally.

Now that we have two, the statement of they can entertain each other doesn't quite seem to be true, atleast not until now. It's been few months now and we are never "off the hook" at all, instead both of us are pretty much "stuck" with atleast one of them at any given instance. Both the kids "demand" completely different level of entertainments, if you know what I mean and if you just said yes to that, trust me you don't, unless you have two {or more} yourself. So....... when we met this family of three (they recently moved into our neighborhood) last weekend, the memory of the days of all the discussions of going for second and the faces of all our dear friends who coined the phrase "off the hook", was fresh again.

With their daughter around the same age as my Tammy (my older one), playing in the room upstairs, we mommies decided that we should be in the same room so as to keep an eye. During our conversation the lady complimented me for how great I look for the fact that I just had a baby. I really liked the lady, coz if you don't know, "looking great" or "you have lost all your weight" is the sweetest compliment you can give to a new mommy and she was going exactly by the books.

I guess most parents to one kid, consider a lot before taking on the decision for the next one, I believe going or not going for more just comes out naturally after that.

So when she asked me, "How is life with two kids?", " How did we decide on having another kid?" etc, you would wonder what my reply was. Well, I can summarize my answer by saying that I gave her the concept of "off the hook" myself.....surprised?.....yeah, I was too......and honestly I really liked the family......I still am trying to figure out what got into me. I looked at the closet mirror in front of me and I could see the devils horns on my head. It's been four days now and I feel really sad for not giving her the true picture of life with two kids.

"Off the hook" is only a hope for us right now, "We are stuck" is the current slogan.

{sigh}.....So help me GOD......'coz I have sinned.........

To be the Best!

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:23:00 +0000

"Mommy my piano doesn't work. It is broken, I think"
"Don't worry sweetheart, papa will fix it. It needs new batteries"
....
"Mommy, look at my shoes. This is not right, yes mumma?"
"Don't worry baby, we will show it to papa. He will fix it with a glue."
....
"Mommy, I want to open it and play with it"
"Hold on dear, we have to wait for papa. Papa will assemble it first, then you can play with it"
....
"Mommy, I want to ride my bike." "
Wait for papa to come. He will teach to how to ride it"
"Mumma, papa can do so many things"
"You bet! papa knows everything, He is the best Daddy"
"Yeah, my papa is the best! He can do everything."
"Mommy, I love my papa so so much"
....
[And last week]
{tuck} The chalk falls on the floor and breaks
"Papa....this broke"
"That's ok dear, now you have two chalks to write with"
"No papa, I want the big one. You have to fix it."
"Fix it! No one can fix it."
"Papa but you have to....you have to fix it"
"Why"
{convincingly} "Coz otherwise you will not be the Best Papa anymore!"

My little back seat driver

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:10:00 +0000

When my little Tammy learnt about traffic signal I was very proud.....of myself.....ofcourse for obvious reasons.

Red says NO,
Green says GO
and Yellow says SLOW....SLOW....SLOW!

that was our little traffic signal song :)

Tammy has learnt a lot more by now about traffic rules. STOP sign rule, bike lane, right of way etc etc and she would make sure that I follow all of them......all the time! It is fun most of the time to hear her from the back seat guiding me thru the traffic, can't deny that it gets irritating sometimes.......or let me confess......most of the time. But who would have thought that the most pain in the @$$ rule would be the Yellow signal rule.

My reflex action to the yellow light would everytime be accelerating a little to reach the other side ASAP and little Tammy would always notice this tiny acceleration and would start screaming.... "Mom, it's yellow light, you have to go slow.....slow mom.....slow. I am not talking to you now. You did a wroooooong thing. When its yellow light you need to...." and she goes on and on about it until something interesting catches her attention.

So yesterday I decided to not accelerate when the traffic light turned yellow........and the light I picked to follow this rule had cameras..............which meant "No forgiveness" and all the rest happened in the fraction of second -

- I took my foot off the accelertor which slowed the car down....so I was following the signal.
- I judged that I will make it to the other side assuming that the car behind me will stay put and wait for the next light.
- Wrong assumtion! The next car followed me and I knew right then that he/she will not make it.
- The guilt feeling of me being the reason for his/ her bad luck today creeped in.
- I prayed god to help him /her.
- He/She quickly went to the next lane and crossed the intersection along with me.....making it to the other side just in time.....my prayer was heard.....fast!
- I thanked god for helping him/ her out and got honked at by him /her.

Woah! that's it....I decided I am not listening to my little back seat driver anymore.

On the Side:
I narrated the story to my husband and when I was using "him/her", "he/She", he paused me and said, "Oh! the driver was a HE" and continued looking at my expression questioning how...."the fact that his mind worked fast and he moved to the next lane and saved himself......is a proof in itself".

Hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm.......

Father's day on the raceway

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:24:00 +0000

It's been quite sometime since I last blogged. Just been very busy with everyday life and I have so much to talk about. Our father's day experience was sitting in my "My Documents"
for quite sometime now so I thought let me spring back to blogging life with that. So here it is.....

Well, I thought I had a very well planned Father's Day (june 21st). Least did I know that the lack of mishap could also make a day boring.....literally.

I planned our day around the NASCAR Race in Sonoma at the Infineon Raceway. Got the NASCAR Race tickets, planned the dinner out after the race, packed the backpacks with sunscreen, sun glasses, ear plugs, caps, lots of water.......oh and the tickets :) Since my company was sponsoring one of the car in the race we were invited for a photo shoot opportunity with the driver Bobby Labonte and the garage tour.

We were very excited and I was so sure that it will be a great day. Plan was to be there by 11:00 for the photo shoot, then do the garage tour at 12:00 and then watch the opening ceremony of the race at 1:30 and the race from 2:00. All we had to do was be there by 11:00 and the schedule would just fall in place.

So much for the plan of leaving home by 9:00, we only started at 9:45 only to realize that we were out of gas. So the starting time got postponed to few minute to 10:00. Fortunately, we didn't hit any traffic on the way coz we were still pretty early per the race schedule. Unfortunately though, the line to the parking we were in was going to the parking which was the farthest to our seating area. We were still in the line to the parking at 10:50 and we knew the photo shoot opportunity was not happening. Not much harm done though. We are not a die-hard fans of Bobby Labonte so missing the photo opportunity didn't really do much to our race excitement. When we reached our parking lot, we saw a long line to take the shuttle to our seating area from the place. So we decided I should get down and stand in the line while daddy parks the car. So I and my little one, we joined the line to the shuttle and were waiting for daddy to join. And the waiting got a bit too loooooong coz daddy got out of the parking area from different side and couldn't figure out where we were. So for next 30 minutes we were lost and to top the drama, I picked up the wrong backpack, so my cell phone was also with daddy...{sigh}. The guy next to me was nice to lend me his cell phone and we had a family re-union in 15 more minutes.

By the time we took our shuttle it was 12:35 already so there goes the garage tour opportunity. Still no dent on our excitement to watch the race. After two shuttles and one golf cart ride we were at our seating place and the first thing that came to our mind was.....we need to eat! and we did. We were in the nick of time as the opening ceremony was about to start and the air show had started. There were planes and choppers hovering on our head doing awesome tricks, emitting American flag colors, followed by fire works, sky divers, National Anthem, salute from tanks and fighter planes flying very low right above our head. AWESOME....BLOSSOM!!!!

And then the REAL thing started....THE RACE!! They took couple of laps at normal speed, and the third lap was VRRRRROOOOMMMMMMMMM......so loud, so fast, so thrilling...it was amazing. After few laps though, our excitement kinda started to die down for the mere reason that there so no accident or even a minor mishap that we could be the first hand spectator to. Well there weren't many mishaps anyways and the very few that happened could not be seen from our seating area. We had pretty good seating though, with the longest (and straight) of the race road in the view. But I suppose most accidents happen on the turns. Something we learnt for the next time.

A lot happened the whole day, but our excitement was dampened by the not happening of any mishap during the race. We could not take it after around 25 laps and decided to head back. We did some photo shoot with the race cars on display and checked out the trucks which carry the race cars. The daddy sneaked out to get the racing experience up close from a small opening around the exhibition area where the divider /separator was very close to the raceway. On our way back to our parking-lot we over-heard many other families talking about the no-mishap race and that how disappointing it was. Guess, we are not the only people with twisted mind in this world :)

The dinner plan was in San Francisco and we loved everything about the food. And then we headed back home, everyone tired and exhausted, ready to crawl back in the bed.

Overall the day was not that bad and for both of us it was the first time we went to a NASCAR race, well any motor race for that matter. But will I go again, I don't think so. I'd rather watch it in the comfort of my home. Not sure if it would be the same for the daddy though. I still have to ask...

Floating in the Air...Now that would be an achievement!

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:49:00 +0000

My company introduced Yoga classes for us employees last month. Today was the orientation class giving us information on what to expect and Q&A at the end. The class I picked involves breathing techniques, light stretching and meditation. To give us a feel of it, the instructor showed us few stretching poses and a 3 minute meditation. I felt really relaxed when I opened my eyes at the click of his fingers. I had heard great things about meditation so I am already pretty excited about the class and when just 3 minutes can make me feel this good, I am sure an hour long class will do wonders.

Well, I am not promoting Yoga here. I don't really care about how you take care of your health. Hell, I don't even take care of my health. Talk about all the junk food I eat with the only exercise of my life, 5 minutes run to catch the train every morning. So I definately cannot be the speaker to health and hence that is not what I have for this blog.

Back to the feeling good moment I was having after the 3 minute meditation. Next was the Q&A session and the instructor asked us to speak whatever was on our mind. And since he asked for it, I did. I asked if meditation can make you wise. More like the saintly souls, like people who preach about aspects of life and encourage you on how better to live it. I asked him if I can be that person who can see the reality in different perspectives and colors, be calm in complete chaos, stay composed in a complete disaster situation.

Yes, my question was long but then I had to frame it right to get my answer. I sure turned the heads in the room. I guess because most of the other questions were about, "can we medidate sitting on a chair?", "should we move the center table to the side?", "isn't the room a little chilly, is there a way to just increase the temperature of the room a bit?" etc. Few laughed at my question which I find a bit intruiging, coz' I was very serious and I feel so was my question. I sure made the instructor go in deep thoughts and then he started answering, the gist of which was....depending upon how seriously you take meditation and how often you do it, it can do wonders from helping you stay calm and composed to giving you the ability to even lift yourself up in the air and more. Although after sometime you need a guru to guide you through your mediation practice.

Well, sounds awesome. I am not sure how seriously I am going to take this class but if you ever see me floating in the air, don't tell me that I didn't share the secret with you.

Morning Of The Big Day

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:15:00 +0000

In my bed,
I heard birds chirping,
From the window,
Sunrays were entering.

I pulled my blanket,
And turned my side,
Thinking about the morning,
I then realized.

Someone was calling me,
She had something to say,
And asked a peculiar question,
‘Do you remember, what is today’?

I turned my side again,
And heard the voice asking the same,
I tried hard to recall,
But it was all in vain.

Just then a thought,
Passed through my head,
I threw my blanket,
And jumped out of my bed.

I ran for the calendar,
But stumbled on my way,
My mom gave me a hand & said,
‘My darling, ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’

-written in '97 on my Birthday

कसम पुरी हुई...

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:40:00 +0000

ख़ुद से ही होड़ थी आगे बढ़ने की,
कोशिश भी बहुत की हमने पुरी करने की...

किताब खोला, दौड़ लगाई,
हर competition में ज़ोर लगाई...

आज खिड़की से बहार देखते हैं,
तो दुनिया पीछे छुट्ती दिखती है...

पेड-पौधे, लोग, घर,
मोटर-गाडी, सब...

चलो... इसी जीवन में कसम पुरी हुई,
हमने उतरकर ट्रेन को बहुत दुआ दी !

- मैं कवि तो नही

Gender Confusion

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:44:00 +0000

I was registering at digg.com today. Since I joined the blogging world, digg.com came under my attention many times so I decided to find out more. It is a website where anyone can submit any article, blog, image etc that might have interested them and other "diggers" can read about it. The more the submission is digged, the higher the submission is rated. Cool....I thought. So I decided on trying it out and the first step to try it out, is to register.

Fair enough, I clicked on 'Join Digg', filled up some bare minimum info and clicked on "I agree" to move forward. The Next page said that they have sent me an email to my subscribed email address and that I should open the email and click on the link for further registration steps. So I signed in into my email, opened the email and clicked on the link in it, so far so good. Since the info on the new page that opened was optional, I just entered my full name and moved to the Gender drop-down box. I usually prefer to make my selection for gender even if its optional. When the drop-down box really dropped, I was stunned to see so many options to select from.

Poor me, since I have started filling forms I have always got Male, Female as two options to select from and here I was with this nice little list of options to select from. Nice and confusing....Girl, Lady, Bird, grrrl, Damsel, Belle, Female.....the choice was enormous!

It felt nice to have this list of gender selection for the first time rather than the mundane male and female. They even included transgender, a nice touch of recognition for transgenders I would say. But then the "None of the above" option got me. If I am none of the above, then who could I be. Even if I am an animal, I sure have to be a male or a female type, right?......wrong. That is when my scientific side of the brain kicked in and I remembered of EARTHWORMS!

I bow down to whoever prepared the list. The person (now I am not sure about that) took care of every gender group however small and unimportant it be. A beautiful example of gender non-discrimination.

Celebrating Pessimism

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:15:00 +0000

I am a Pessimist.

And if you are too, then you will very well understand what I am talking about. Since pessimism is not considered a great quality to have instead; I would categorize myself as not so optimistic. An optimist would accept and be proud of his/her optimism but it is not the same with a pessimist and I would wonder why. I still have to meet a person who is pure optimist, based on judgements of scenario, the same person can be optimist and pessimist.

I recently stumbled upon this very beautiful saying which completely changed my perspective towards my pessimism. I don't really know who wrote /said that, but whoever did, I am sure has /had a great depth and understanding of life.

"Pessimists are the best planners", that’s the saying and it has so much meaning hidden in just few words. Would any of you reading this blog not agree to this statement?

Being a pessimist, I would have a backup plan most of the time to any activity that I am planning. While working, if I decide on changing some part of code a bit I would always zip the old code and save it in a different folder. Heck! When I write a document my left hand fingers keep going on Alt-F-S (saving the file) after each sentence completion (or may be its just a habit). If I am shopping and I like something, I would always buy it right then and not wait for a holiday sale. What if that item is not available by the sale season and believe me, there have been some heart breaks few times when I tried to have some optimism there. When I started writing this blog, I also started writing a technical blog, just in case, and the same goes for my technical blog. I guess, cautiousness is built-in in me and I am sure it is built-in in every pessimist. Being cautious does not mean I don't take my chances, I do, but just that I have a fall back.

Ok that said, I think the soon to be famous saying above is quite true. Pessimism to the extent of living a depressed life might not be acceptable but just being plain pessimist, what's the downside. I don't think that I or anyone who is pessimist should hide or feel bad about it. If optimism is something to be proud about, pessimism brings in its own great qualities to the table. I also feel that it makes success more sweeter.

Oh! And for the record, I am not a complete pessimist (whatever that means). Honestly, in doing anything I would always decrease the probability of a successful outcome but then it's never zero...

The "What The" manner

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:33:00 +0000

I had a habit or bad habit I was trying to get rid of, the habit of saying "What the ????". Depending on the situation and the seriouness of the screw up, the last word would vary from "Hell", "Heck" to anything else you can think of. But I decided on giving up the habit sometime back so that my little one does not carry on the knowledge. But still there were times when I just could not avoid it. But being a good mom, I would never say the last word. So I would always end at "What the!". I thought it was safe and there was nothing wrong for my little one to learn these two very harmless words, "what" and "the".

Its been two weeks now since I am dreading to the day I thought it was harmless to say those two words. I never realised my 2.5 year old will be able to use these two words such beautifully, always in the right context. I admire the smartness of my baby and my stupidity at the same time. Here's few of our recent conversation.

ME: "Did you see the birdie. there was a birdie on that tree".
"where mama?"
ME: "its gone away now".
"Gone away. What the!.

ME: "You have to finish your food, otherwise no Mickey Mouse"
"{Sad}What the!"

ME: "That's a snail. see a big snail and a small snail."
"{pointing at them} mama snail, baby snail". "mama, where papa snail"
ME: "papa snail is at office"
"office....What the!"

ME: "Can you go play in the other room. mama is working right now"
"Working...You working mama.....What the!"

{Sad in the morning coz I am leaving for work}
"You naki {no} go mamma"
ME: "mama has to go to work sweetie, but mamma will come pick you up early"
"Work....What the!"

{and just yesterday in the car, I thought I was teaching her language by repeating myself}
ME: "You want to go to the park"
"{excited} Yes"
ME: "You would like to go to the park"
"yes mama"
ME: "yeah, we will all go to the park"
"yes"
ME: "mama will go to the park"
"yaay"
ME: "papa will go to the park"
"yeeeessss"
ME: "you will go to the park"
"yeaaah"
ME: "We will all go to the park"
"ok mama"
ME: "You want to go to the park"
"What the!"

I cannot stop laughing at those moments but I really need to get rid of this "what the" manner. At first I thought ignoring it would do the trick, but that seems to have failed. Any suggestions...

The Beauty in Slumdog Millionaire

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:58:00 +0000

During one of our few casual interactions, one of my colleague who hails from China declared that he was planning on watching Slumdog Millionaire over the weekend, which triggered my curiosity to learn his reaction to the movie. Not that I feel it is the best movie (even though it bagged quite a lot of awards) nor does the movie represent any of the bright or good side of the India, but somehow the fact that it is gaining so much popularity makes me happy.

The discussion of the movie started with few common questions about India and the “Who wants to be the Millionaire” show aired in the movie. I believe he was trying to learn about life in India. After some discussion on the movie came his puzzling question. A bit surprised at first, I quickly gathered the question to be very obvious coming from a bachelor. The answer to his question was a very simple Yes/No, but have you been in a situation when a simple yes/ no demands a lot of evaluation before you can take your stand. Well, that was my situation when he asked, "Do you think the girl in the movie was beautiful per Indian standard?"

If I answer yes, I thought I would not be able to introduce the famous beauties of India, Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra alike to this bachelor friend of mine. Part of my heart wanted to boast about the Indian beauties, the fact that they have been winning so many beauty pageants lately sure was something to be showcased here. But my mind didn't agree with me. Why should I categorize the actress as not beautiful when she was representing the common Indian girl and I believe that is what was in the mind of the movie director. In my opinion, Frieda Pinto (the actress in the movie) is one of many intelligent looking girls who might not be categorized as beautiful by technical standards but are quite appealing and easy on eyes to many!

So how did I answer to his question, I said "No". Yeah I wanted to show off the famous Indian beauties and I quickly did an image search for few popular Indian actresses to change his perspective towards Indian beauty. We talked on this topic for few more minutes and then he kind of concluded that, because the actress was representing the slum area of India the director did not choose a beautiful girl to play the part.

Honestly, I was not planning on giving him that idea, nor did I put it that way in words. And yes I was a bit thrown away by the conclusion myself. But for him the average women are not beautiful was the point to take away.

I kept re-evaluating our discussion for quite some time to figure out how I could have changed the conclusion only to realize that may be he hoped or already knew that No was the answer to his question.

Life without APPLE

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:55:00 +0000

Sometimes I wonder if it's a sin to not own any Apple product and this feeling got stronger since I started taking public transportation to work.

I sit there with my newspaper, worried about where the world is going. All I get out of it is more depression. When I pull my head out of the newspaper and look around, I find everyone around me (well most, there still are few depressed souls with newspaper in their hand in this world.....and my train) lost in the music from their iphones and ipods, shaking their head in rhythm with a look of complete ZEN. No worries of the economy downturn, job market, political tug-of-war, or who shot who.

Listening to music for me is a distraction, unlike most; I cannot work while listening to songs, so I never thought of owning an ipod. But this zen-ness is quite tempting. The feeling of having sinned by subjecting my mind to such torture from reading everyday news has surrounded me these days. Being aloof from the world and its miseries sure sounds The Right Way to live the rest of my life.

So here I am, writing this blog, especially addressing all you ipod and iphone owners, how has owning such zen-ning product affected your life?....Should I go for it too?

Sincerely,
living asis

The Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:43:00 +0000

I was out to shop for brown shoes. I needed a bit of dark brown shade to match few of my outfits.

So here I was with pair of two tan bellies in my hand, one pair with heels and the other pretty much flat and I was trying to figure out which one should I pick. Well, flats work best for me, on my way to work I can run to catch my train which I end up doing almost everyday but then heels look more pretty and stylish (may be that's just in my head). After spending some time I decided on going for flats.

Rigth then a woman sat on the chair by my side, trying out high boots. Not the tan shade I was looking for but they looked fabulous and were brown. So I looked around and found a pair of lovely high boots which had patches of different brown shades. I cannot describe my excitement when I found my size in it. I could only imagine how wonderfully it would match all my brown outfits and I don't have to stand in front my shoe rack to figure out which one should I go for.

But Alas! I came back to reality, I already had two pair of bellies to decide from and now a pair of high boot added to the decision process. So again I was sitting there, thinking shouldn't shopping be fun. Then why was it becoming so complicated for me. Well, after a lot of reasoning, I got up of that chair with my best pick and was walking towards the cashier....there on my way to the cashier was a beautiful medium heeled tan shade sandals!

{Sigh...} Next, I was trying to evaluate from my knowledge of reading news, if the economy is already going up or will go up anytime soon...

The water I drink changed

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:35:00 +0000

My company provides bottled water in addition to filtered water and of course some other every day drinks free. I joined this company few months back and got hooked to drinking bottled water for no specific reason. When I joined they also gave a water bottle with their logo on it. Just that I never got a chance to wash it, to be able to use it. By the way, I would always recycle those empty bottles and I am very particular about recycling stuff.

Few times in last couple of months, the recycling container would get full as its emptied once a week, I suppose and my colleagues and I would talk about having a bigger recycling container. It appeared to me that I was a big contributor to the recycling container as I would also read news paper every day on my way home and back to work in the train and drop it in the container the next morning.

One of my colleague asked me few times during our recycling discussion if I drink the bottled water and after answering to his question I would ask him why did he ask that and he would say, "oh! Just like that". I did not understand the purpose of him asking that question repeatedly until last week when I was throwing my empty bottle back into the recycling container which was pretty full already.

So this weekend I washed the water bottle my company gave me and I have a strong feeling that we will not need a bigger recycling container anymore. My new water bottle is sitting at my desk, half filled, and the recycle container only has few old new papers.

One more step towards going green...

Today's weather...

noreply@blogger.com (livingasis) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:33:00 +0000

It was sunny outside today and I was happy that I don't have to carry my umbrella or wear by thick jacket to work. Only when I got out of train for work, it was raining, and on my way to work I was taking cover under shades of buildings and restaurants. And while dodging those few drops of rain from landing on me, I was cursing the weather until I entered my work building and began to wonder....

Wouldn't you say that changing weather makes our life less boring (I just didn't want to put it as more fun, and I don't know why). And if you don't agree with me try making a note of the time you spend in changing your wardrobe with the changing weather and every time in between when every morning you look out of your window to judge the weather outside to decide on your outfit for that day. And the spice is added when you come to work in sweat shirts and jackets, only to step out of your car and find the weather to be bright, sunny and warm! (Tell me it never happened to you. YOU LIAR!)

Yes! and how can you forget the first conversation you have with your parents everytime you call home, "Its raining here, Hows the weather there?".For some people, weather decides if its a shower day or just dry clean :) (and I didn't say it was you)

Well, weather decides so much for us. Before planning a trip we check weather, before going to work we check weather, before changing the news channel we wait for weather info, and most of the time we check "Today's Weather" just for the heck of it.

And now I feel it was actually fun to jump in and out of the shades, wiping my glasses, looking at other smart people with their umbrellas, showing up at work .....all drenched! or was it not? hmmmm...