Study Hours!

Inspiration: One of my ex-colleague quit her job and joined a college to pursue further studies. All this after having 2 babies. Last I heard she is doing great academically. Happy for her.

Desperation: I have a certification voucher that expires 30th of August. If I clear that, its going to give a huge edge over my bunch of super talented team members and cut throat competition.

Frustration: Inspite of the fast approaching exam date, surmounting course material to be reviewed, am not doing a thing to get past this exam successfully. The occassional day when guilt becomes overbearing, I open the cours material and breeze through a couple of pages, with absolutely nothing registering in my mind. The next time I open the same page, the content doesn't even seem remotely familiar. Am stuck on the same page, same para, same line for the last 2 days.

Botheration: Am blaming it on my age cells that am not able to concentrate and move rapidly through the course material. Fact is am not even trying. Am sitting like the lazy queen bee doing nothing and hoping for things to fall in place automatically.

Realization: Am wasting too much time(with hardly any left), being ridiculously shameless in accepting all this and writing it here and hence wasting more time, and inspite of this realization, sitting and smiling at the computer , checking my gmail and fb updates and the work mail.

Serious now! Sign off!

Nobody toucheth` my Cheese!

Couple of days ago, I read an article where the writer said, he was inspired after reading the book "Who moved my cheese?" and realised that he was leading a very very comfortable life. He went ahead and changed his job, office being the farthest from his home and a profile totally new. He changed a job in which he was flourishing and the office too was comfortably located from his residence. Strange people in this world. Strange here is my perspective though.

Same night I dreamt that I was loathing in a big block of cheese, licking it, enjoying it and fighting with anybody who dared touch my cheese! I am in a much comfortable space (cheese :) )today , and cannot fathom why I would move out of this which helps me balance and have peace of mind. Have I become less adventurous, Am I missing out on something, or is it something to do with age?

The copy of the book "Who moved my cheese?" is lying right there in the shelf, I tried reading through it a couple of times before but it scares me..

Men, Marriage and More

: Boy meets girl, they fall in love. Life looks beautiful, perfect and surprising how easily they met their Ms/Mr Right while he rest of the world is struggling. Boy pampers girl with shopping trips, flowers, chocolates and all. Girl wants to do something special for the boy and goes ahead and tries to cook something sweet n nice for her Mr Right. She cooks, but the end result of course was not as nice as she wanted it to be. She still takes it to the boy. The boy is overwhelmed, thanks her for the efforts she took for him, praises the not so nice dish as if its the best dish he ever tasted and she is the next best cook(after his mom of course!!) he has ever met!


They get married. Honeymoon period

: Newly wed Wife wants to impress her husband by cooking something nice and of his liking. After a lot of effort , she manages to pull out a dish . Husband after  eating(with a straight face), realises he is newly married and needs to praise his wife on her efforts.
Husband: Its nice honey, but may be there was a tad bit extra salt there, but thats ok , am sure you will do it better next time.
Wife encouraged by nice words: Oh sure, I will definitely make it better next time.


Post the honeymoon period, husband and wife settle down in to the regular world, start empathizing with the rest of the world and get in to the daily grind. Whoever said it was all rosy and love would get us through. We still need to eat to live and love.

: Wife cooks still with the same enthu to serve her husband and family something healthy and tasty to eat.(Author of the post being a girl, will give this benefit of doubt to all wives :) ) . Wife serves the food.
Husband(with a straight face) : Just eats. Doesn't say anything.
Wife: How is it?
Husband(With a puzzled straight face on why this question): Yeah, its good.
Wife: Why didnt you tell that before? You tell me its good only after I asked.
Husband: ???

: Wife cooks. Husband eats.
Husband: There is something missing in the dish. Why dont you call my mom or someone before cooking to ask how its done.
Wife(thinking) : I should never have asked him to tell how the dish was, the straight face was so much better to handle.
Sigh!
----------------------------------***End of story.. look for moral below***---------------------------

Dear Husbands,

A lot of effort goes behind planning, procuring, learning and cooking the dinner that you eat with straight faces. We as wives , do not expect you to thank us everyday for what we do. We do it out of our love for you, to make sure you get to eat something nice and healthy. A little acknowledgement , occassional appreciation from you would make us wives feel all the effort was worth it. Yes, criticism is also welcome, but not that frequently. Remember, its the same effort that goes in to making any dish, good or bad. Its just that sometimes the ratios go bad, it still doesnt mean we put in lesser effort or our intention of serving you tasty food was not there. When you do something, its human to expect a feedback. We are not saying you appreciate us everyday, but you surely will know when there has been an extra effort put in by seeing the dish that was made. Acknowledge/Appreciate before we ASK. trust me, you are only going to see better results by taking that small step. You could apply the same work funda you apply at work, Appreciate and get more work done!!
Yes, we know that men are from Mars and have issues being vocal about their feelings, so to help you out, your acknowledgement/appreciation can come in the below forms too:
1) Smile at us after eating the first bite. We will know.
2) Raise your eyebrows and nod your head, we will be glad.
3) Lick your fingers, we will be happy :)
4) Clean your plate and empty the dish(clear it with rice or roti), we will be delighted.
5) Be a little diplomatic when you criticize, camouflage it coz trust me, a bad remark after all those efforts that you didnt like it, leaves us sulking!
Thats all we want you to do! In your own lil way, tell us you are not taking our efforts for granted and do acknowledge!
Yours lovingly,
Wives


P.S: N, Are you reading this Honey?

This week..

I loved the week thats gone by! It started on Monday with shopping at commercial and ended on friday with shopping at Central! whoopieeeee! Nopes, I have not added much to my already overflowing wardrobes, but still the very act of shopping peps me up! Shopping on friday was completely impromptu and I totally loved it.

It had been equally hectic week at work too, escalations, incidents, problems, attitudes, discussions and documents. But it was good. I like it that way.

Made it to gym 4 days this week, which I thought was good enough! What I realised on friday was that, the gymming isnt helping much, the jeans just got tougher to fit in to. Jeans shrink everytime we wash them, don't they? :D

Couple of cooking disasters too.. but that's ok. who is complaining anyway? :)

Akshara madam has started behaving like every other toddler, trying the teary way of getting things done at the drop of the hat! The moment I say NO to any of her demand, the loud cry starts instantly with tears rolling down her cheeks in the waterfall model. What's surprising is that, the moment she gets what she wants, the tears also stop rolling midway on the cheeks. Some manipulation that! I have been giving in too much, and am sure that banging from N is not very far away!

Parenting thoughts..

Parenting can leave you stressed out, confused, nostalgic and happier all at once! Its a process which evolves you, you learn continously and you keep going back to your childhood and realize how you have been brought up.
I keep going back to my childhood to see if I could trace back a similar situation and how my mom/dad dealth with it. Not that I can apply it as is now, the kids have changed , the growing environment has changed but it only makes it a little easier for me to decide on.

I have also realized that, my parents never burdened me with the feeling that they have sacrificed a lot for me or have dedicated all their life in bringing me up and providing everything for me, and hence I need to perform better to justify all their efforts. They were never the "Always around the kid" kind of parents, but still imbibed in me the feeling that I am loved and they will protect me and will always stand by me when need be. Mom continued her studies after marriage, after kids, went on to having a successful career as a school teacher, participated in cultural activities and always led an active life. Still, we were never neglected, we were given the right amount of independence and freedom to be able to be take right decisions and be responsible for what we do, and of course there was always this case that we knew mom will get to knowof everything we do even if she is not present around us all the times!
She is my inspiration, she took motherhood as another role in her life and not her life. She did everything for us, we were well taken care of all the time but she still managed to take out time for herself, developed individuality and enjoyed her life to the fullest.

I do not want to burden Akshara harping that I sacrificed so much for you, now u better perform in your studies and justify my sacrifices. I do not want her to live in a constant pressure of performing better and making her parents happy since they did so much for her.
The challenge lies ahead of me to imbibe in her the right amount of indepence and responsibility. Tough journey ahead.. Bring it on!

How much is too much?

It gets a little uncomfortable when people you are not very close with start sharing their most personal problems with you and there is hardly anything for you to do to help them out of their problem or even suggest them something to come out of the crisis they are in. 
I am not sure if its sheer coincidence or what, but in the past 2 weeks, I have been the agony aunt twice, once for my colleague and another time for my neighbour. Not that I share a super friendly relationship with them, but they have shared such personal problems which made me really uncomfortable.
I was sitting there confused , listening to their problems , not knowing what to say, not knowing what they were expecting out of me. May be all they wanted was some outlet to vent out their problems and feel better, but it left me all down. I do not like to hear problems to which I cannot offer any solution, it makes me feel powerless, helpless. It could be anyones problem. Their problems left me frustrated. I have enough in my plate to deal with and things like these, throw me out of my balance.
May be I am overreacting but seriously, why would I share my problems with someone whom I know will not be able to help me in any which way? Is it ok sometimes to just be there listen them out and leave it at that? The problem may be is with me, I cannot leave it at that. It continues to bother me.

N teases me that I think a lot unneccesarily and hence the grey hair, may be he is right!