Slices of my daily life

There’s a big change happening on the work front…change of organisational composition, change of location and most importantly for me, change of profile. The change of profile is happening with my consent and I know I will struggle initially, but I welcomed the learning opportunity. As my family and close friends will vouch, I am not particularly comfortable with big changes. I too have always known my resistance to change and also recognised the need to learn to accept changes, adapt and evolve. Previously I used to resist them with all my might. Over the years the actual resistance diminished in strength but the resentment and apprehension persisted in my mind. In the present scenario, I am making this huge effort to be ‘saintly’ about this change…that means, ‘I’m neither too happy nor too sad about it’…cocoon --> butterfly theory etc. etc. So far it’s working. Yet today, my resolve is getting a little shaky. Today, we started the actual process of sorting things, disposing of...

*Pardon the ‘art’ I've observed this so often. I wonder why parents mostly hold their kids’ hands like this. I think the parent’s hand as well as the kid’s hand would ache less if held like this. Any idea why ?

…making detailed plans to begin a long-due personal project. Long ago I realised that there is no better time than the present to begin self-improvement projects. Finally today I am actually acting upon my realisation. We keep making excuses. Something or the other is currently taking up most of our time and energy and hence we plan to begin this project after the current hectic phase ends. This hectic phase never ends…and if it does, it is promptly replaced by another very important-urgent thing. And so we keep delaying the project since it is absolutely ‘unfeasible’ right now. But truth be told, we do not want to embark on, what we clearly realise as, tremendous hard work. Most of us do things when they become imperative. I’m no exception. But for this project (I’d like to believe) I’ve taken it up before it has become a ‘no-other-option’ situation. So, hold your breath, I have finally begun (what I assume is going to be a long and tedious) journey towards weight loss through exe...

I have been reading Ai Ling’s blog for some time now and gradually I got curious about her name. So I asked her whether it was name + surname (last name / family name) and which was which or whether it was a pseudonym she had taken for the blogging world. So in response she wrote a nice detailed post that not only gave me the answer to my question but also gave me some information about pronunciations of Chinese names. What it also did was, it inspired me to write about name conventions in India. So, here's a little bit (as much as I'm aware) about the Indian names convention. Whenever surnames are used, they have come about from either the name of a place or the occupation or a title bestowed on a person in the family and then carried on as a family name. Some surnames come from castes or sub-castes. There are some surnames whose origins I am not entirely certain about. In India, in the Central and Western region, the convention is usually name + surname. On official doc...

From 9th December 2010 till 8th January 2011, I successfully completed 31 posts in 31 days i.e. the NaBloPoMo challenge :) I am feeling so relieved. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do it. Consistency isn’t one of my big qualities, you see. But I have done it. So I am feeling ‘phew’ ! And ‘Yaaaaaayyy’ for the same reason…I successfully completed a task that I had set for myself. Actually, only initially did it seem like a task. Later, however, I was eager to write. All day I would be observing things and thinking of subjects, I would be mentally composing posts and couldn’t wait to find time from my work schedule to put up a post. I shall continue to write, though perhaps not daily, but very often. Perhaps I might even do another NaBloPoMo later…this time starting on the first of a month :) I am now officially hooked on to writing :)

When we are children, each of us gets asked this question, "What do you want to become when you grow up ?", and, depending on whatever has taken our fancy at that moment, our answer changes. Just like everybody else, I went through a lot of 'things I wanted to be when I grew up'…and for sometimes funny and sometimes strange reasons. My earliest wish, if I remember correctly, was to become a teacher. I would always gather the children in the society and make them students and teach them all I had learnt at school that day. Naturally, in that phase of mine, I wasn't a very popular girl :) So sometimes I had nobody to play with and yet I taught…to an empty class…such was my dedication :D In one long phase I wanted to become a veterinary doctor (remember Dr. James Herriot ?) and cure all the little doggies. I wouldn't have minded being a conservationist either, like Gerald Durell . I was even serious about being a zookeeper…or in the least a caretaker of elep...

Warning: This is not going to be a profound post…if you are expecting something like that after reading the title. As I sat down to write, my mind was crowded with thoughts of things I need to do, I want to do, but I can’t do, presently, for several reasons. I just couldn’t focus on any particular thing to write about. So, I thought, why write something contrived ? Why not simply write about what’s on my mind right now, this very moment ? So here goes… These are a few of the things I am longing to do… Sleep. And wake up only when I feel like it. Only when I feel completely rested. I think this item would be on everybody’s list, if they made one :) Finish reading those three…um…wait, it’s four…actually no, those five new books. Take a vacation. Somewhere serene and beautiful. And not get antsy on the last two days of the vacation with the thought that it is getting over. Finish writing that story I have begun. Drive on my motorcycle to Kokan. For the uninitiated, Kokan is abou...