Global Family

I have never felt too attached to a nationality or a citizenship because it's not in your control. It depends on where you were born and sometimes on your parents' choice. I always believed that we would get to a time when there won't be any nations and citizenships and everyone is an "Earthizen". But I must admit it felt a little weird when my sibling had accepted another country's citizenship. Our relationship won't change and we won't consider each other foreign all of a sudden but it feels odd that we will carry different passports now. It's probably because we all tend to carry some inherent identity. I now know how some people in future generations would feel when their relatives or friends would take a different planetary membership.

Humans will always cross the current frontiers and create new ones. :)

Elephant's back

One lazy Sunday evening my three year old niece and I were goofing around when she suddenly climbs on my back, stands and announces (with a tone you would think she may have scaled the Everest) loudly: "Look at me. I'm the Baahubali (pronounced in her cute accent) standing on the elephant!".

Like like!

I overheard a mom speaking with her teenage daughter and son at the driver's license office: ".....uncle Jack came like the other day and was like, can you drive me to the airport, I was like, I'm not sure and he was like, I can ask Ben and I was like, you can try that and then he like drove off. I was like not sure what to do and called your father and he was like, it is ok Ben should be able to help, and I was like it's ok.........".

I'm certainly not a good English speaker but it was a little funny to hear that conversation. I was trying to count how many likes she was using. It also reminded me of the school/college days where we used to count how many times a certain word was used by some teachers/professors repeatedly in their lectures.

I wonder if it's the "Like" on Facebook that influenced the word "like" being used as a filler word in the conversations these days.

What's your filler word or a word that you use repeatedly in your conversations? I think I use "weird" quite a bit to describe things. :)

Olymp(eth)ics

One a fine summer Monday, I went to office hoping to get a bunch of things crossed out on my list of things to do. I got through emails and started with a couple of things by the lunch time. I opened the lunch box on my desk (yeah, I don't take lunch breaks) and as I tried to chew a mouthful (when you're hungry, you tend to shove the food through) I suddenly remembered that the summer Olympics had just started over the weekend. I quickly searched for the online live link and started watching it with the window sized to a half of the second screen I use. I continued to do my work with constant distraction of watching the Olympic events. I sometimes even stopped my work completely to catch some important moments of the sports. I was not able to get things done as much as I was hoping to.

This happened on three or four days of the two weeks that the Olympics were held with different levels of distraction. A few days later, I started to wonder if what I did was unethical. I did not miss any deadlines nor my work was impacted too much by watching the sporting event during the work hours, but I have to admit it was certainly a distraction.

What do you think? Would watching news or even listening to music online at your work be wrong?

Fashionport

If you like to see different clothing styles, all you need to do is to be in a major airport for an hour. You can see, especially in the summer, all kinds of clothing styles, materials, colors and cuts. You don't have to go to a fancy fashion show with all too perfect models. You will find regular people wearing from one extreme to the other, practical to absurd, traditional to funky.

What's the most weird/funny dressing you saw at an airport?

Jacklingual

"Chanagidhiya? Woh utah nahin abhi tak. Results bantha? Congrats! Party kab dhoge?", I overheard a friend conversing over the phone one morning when I visited them a weekend. If you observe closely, the friend used three languages in one short conversation.

I tend to do that too, use more than one language in conversations with friends. At times I wonder if I can really call myself multilingual when I can't hold a conversation in one language. I probably should call myself "Jacklingual", as in jack of multiple languages but master of none. :)

Book Drive

I've read people talk about audio books online but I never tried them. I'd rather read a book than hearing to its narration. I feel that reading and trying to understand the material in the book gives the brain a better exercise (I don't know if it is scientifically correct, so don't quote me on it). Recently I had to drive to a friend's place alone with the drive taking around 10 hours. I never drove longer than 5 hours before, so I was searching for ways to entertain myself and keep me awake. I remembered the audio books idea and I felt like trying it out this time.

I borrowed two books from the library, The emperor of all maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee and The stories of Sherlock Holmes by you know who. I tried The emperor of all maladies first early in my drive. It's an interesting book, with a lot of information about cancer and the narration was good too. But I had to repeatedly play the 3-minute tracks to comprehend the details explained in the book and also concentrated on the road. It took a lot of time to finish listening to just one CD (there are 16 of them total). After that, I tried the Sherlock Holmes stories. I was able to grasp the stories easily and didn't have to repeat the tracks much.

Based on my experience during this drive, I feel that listening to audio books while driving may work well only for topics or stories that one is already familiar with. The topics that are unfamiliar like the ones that have a lot of science may not work so well as they would need quite a bit of attention. Listening to the book shouldn't distract you away from the road.

Happy Listening!

Hardwired

On a nice spring Sunday morning, out of the blue a friend asked me if I can come for a quick bike ride to get some exercise and also enjoy the good weather. I said yes on the spur as it was pleasant outside. But then few minutes later, I started having second thoughts. I remembered that I didn't ride a bicycle in the last 15 years and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to ride it after such a long time. It'd be very embarrassing if I stumbled with the bike and fell over. Luckily, to my delightful surprise, I was able to balance and ride the bike nicely right away without any struggle. It looks like my brain stored a permanent record of the skill I learned growing up.

Incidents like this make one realize how cool your brain is. Way to go Brain! :)

Oh God, can you answer?

I was driving my 6 year old niece to her swimming class on a nice April Saturday morning when she called me from her seat.

Her: Hey maama (uncle in Telugu), do you know if God exists?

Me: Uhm, what?

Her: Does God exist?

Took a few seconds to think about how to respond to that question. I didn't want to give misinformation.

Me: Well, no one knows if God exists or not. Some people believe that God exists and some others do not.

Her: If God doesn't exist, how did the Universe come into being?

Wow, good question, I wish I knew the answer!?

Me: Uhm, scientists are trying to find that out.

We got to the pool by now and our conversation had to end.

Hair-Fall

I was chatting with a couple of friends the other day and one was explaining about the hair loss he has had in the last couple of years. Something happened in my funny little brain at that moment and I got a weird idea. What if we had hair fall like the leaves of the trees in the fall/autumn months and grow it back in the spring? That would be interesting and quite funny. Imagine the conversations:

Friend 1: I see you've started shedding hair in September, the fall has started early for you.
Friend 2: Yeah, I'm already feeling the cold.


Friend 1: Oh no, the spring has arrived.
Friend 2: Spring time is nice, why are you sad about it?
Friend 1: Winter was very nice, I didn't have to shampoo or maintain my hair. I'll grow back my hair now and more work again.

I wish I knew how to quit you!

I wish I knew how to quit you. I wish there is a way to selectively erase some memory mappings in the brain. I can't stand the pain your memories create.

Good Bye Sir!

I recently finished reading his autobiography. It was just inspirational. The courage and the positive attitude he showed during his imprisonment was truly amazing. The forgiveness and the reconciliation at the end of it was exemplary. I felt very emotional and tears filled my eyes reading the news articles about his death.

Good Bye Mr. Mandela. Good Bye Madiba.

Adhoori Prem

The perfect love story always belongs to that someone you hear about or to the protagonists in the movies. It's never been mine and I wonder if it's ever gonna be mine. It's almost like I have a curse from my previous life. I always fall in love with a wrong person (not necessarily a bad person of course; no one falls in love with someone who they think is a bad person). If one cannot reciprocate my love, there's other who will not reciprocate even if that person has feelings for me. Either way I end up being heart broken. Time taken to get out of disappointment keeps increasing every time it happens. Alas!!

Like it says on my profile description, living the moments, happy or sad, constitutes life I guess.

Life's Song

Hmm, I know, I haven't written for months now. Well, I did have things to write, I was either lazy or I wasn't sure if I can put few things in public domain. The past several months have neither been great nor been bad.

I was listening to DDLJ songs the other day and I remembered all the wonderful days in 8th standard in the school. It used to be fun in those days. I always relate songs to my days in the past, whether good or bad. I turn off the songs that remind of me bad days, even though they are hit numbers. :)

Is it just me or everyone out there feel the same way too?

Little Tour

I visited San Diego last weekend. We (sis, bro-in-law and I) went to sea world and zoo. I visited zoo many times in India, so I thought it would be boring to see the same animals. But luckily I got to see some new ones this time. The most excited one was watching pandas. I always thought I should see them live whenever I watched them on television. They look so cute. And then there were whales and dolphins shows which were good too. I also saw arctic animals like polar bear, polar whale, seals and also the antarctic penguins. Overall, it wasn't that boring.

On a related note, I'm bringing the never ending debate of whether the animals should be captivated and kept in zoos just for the pleasure of us. I feel sorry for them sometimes but also feel it's ok to do that as they are taken good care. What do you guys say?

Move On...........But How??

Akaash feels he is just living life with no real reason. He asks himself what is he living for. He can't move ahead from the past. The past is haunting and hurting him. It's as if there is a sythaan in his body eating his soul a spoonful a day.

Everyone around him suggests to move on and enjoy the life. Akaash is aware that's the solution. What he is not aware is how to implement that solution. What he is not aware is how to win the war against his inner self.

Build Sudoku

I'm sure most of you played/solved Sudoku. How many of you thought and tried to build the puzzle yourself? We have to start with an empty table, decide on how many to expose and start filling the numbers so they satisfy the sudoku logic. It's not that hard but you need to think while making it of course.

Link for the steps here.

Quirky Me!!

Few quirky things about me:)

- If i like a movie song, I listen to it 'n' number of times (n>50) daily for 5 days. I never listen to it again for 10years.

- Sometimes when I'm idle and see any words, I try to divide them into 2's or 3's, if they don't fit,
I keep doing that or try to change the spelling somehow to complete that :)

eg: America
Am
er
ic
aA
me
ri
ca


- I try to keep my right foot last when climbing up/down a staircase

- I dont like red clothes (although women look beautiful in red)

- If I get a bad dream and wake up in the night, I sleep and re-dream the same thing and change it to my wish :)

Visit the site - The better India. The site showcases the individuals who go an extra mile to change/improve the lives around them. Good work, Mr and Mrs Parekh. Way to go!

At last it rained for few days and I see smiles on people's faces. We had to buy water not just for drinking but also for daily use for a month or so as water in the borewell depleted. The recent rains brought the situation to normal, the borewell gives water now.

I can't imagine the plight of the people living in areas where there's scarcity of water round the year. I feel whoever has told that the next world war will be for water has forecasted correctly. I wonder sometimes why the earth's natural resources like water, minerals, oil have started depleting only now while the earth has formed some million years ago. May be we really started using them only few years ago.

On other note, managers never really are satisfied with your work :)