Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Finally, rain!!

March in Bangalore this year was unlike any I have seen, extreme dryness and no humidity at all. Almost gave me nosebleeds.

Also if it is hot for 2 days invariably it rains the third usually. This time it was like some game. Clouds but no breeze, looks like rain but none. Finally it rained today! Phew! That was a loooong wait.

Monday, April 23, 2012

More competing

Close on the heels of my last post comes one more ;) I was part of the team that won the 4x100m mixed relay in the Cisco Engineering Corporate Challenge :P Upfront, I have to confess I was the weakest link and we had very strong runners in the team and I was just supplying the headcount for the team ;) But still, we won ;) So cheers!!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Competing

In the last few weeks I realized the love of my life that I was missing - competing in events.

Inherently I always was a very competitive person. I don't let the competition translate into jealousy - and I abide by this rule very strictly - but competing itself gives me a high :)

When I was a student - till engineering even - I had avenues in which I could compete and feel good. Since then the competing part has waned, found very few outlets and in general been sitting in some dusty corner.

A few weeks ago, thanks to a friend, I played Throwball - a sport I played last - 15 years ago! I used to be quite good at it - was the team captain - won various matches etc - but I was not confident of what I could do now - we also were playing a rather formidable-looking team. We lost the match but I guess for me the highlight was that I was able to hold my serve and also served aces for 9 points! Of course the other team did much better (which is why we lost) but knowing that I still maintained the edge of my serve made me feel good - and in general the cheers and the energy that a team sport brings to your system - I had not experienced this in 15 years!! I realized how much I missed it when I went through that experience again. Maybe I will play again next year - like they say - just for the kicks.

Last week was also particularly good. An entry I submitted on behalf of my team won the group prize and was announced in a meeting with JohnC and I actually felt great. I did not think it would make me so happy or give me such a high - but it did. And I found myself unable to explain it at all. In the same lines, we had a local celebration as well and I had also won another contest (although it was a walk over in some sense - I knew another entry which was much better) - but getting that acknowledgement in front of 200 people was enough to make my whole week at work exciting! So then I figured, it is just that I am a competitive person. And some habits never die!



Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Tremors

I felt the desk shake when I was talking to my manager - I thought the walk in the heat I had post lunch probably was making my head spin. Then I came back to my desk and it happened again - I pinged a colleague who was walking with me - she confirmed she also felt the desk shake. I want to be responsible and get out of the building - maybe I should do it now.

Hearing news of a quake in Indonesia. Need to check that.

What a nightmare!

Today it took me 1 hour and 10 minutes to get to work - a commute I usually finish in 20-30 minutes. I could not find anything obvious that was wrong but came to work and found out that some piece of the road caved in at my campus junction - I wonder - when will we learn to be even a little honest about the work we do - anyone experiencing ORR for the last few years can vouch for the fact that the flyover business has been extremely sloppy at best - traffic has been mismanaged abundantly and in general the whole thing just sucks. I managed to leave a little early today so I at least got to work by 10. The son was getting impatient towards the end and if he was not such a well behaved child I don't know what I would have had to go through in addition to the traffic pile up. It has still not reached the 880 nightmarishness that I used to see near Fremont but it is getting there fast.

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Birthday

Somehow I am always excited about my birthday. And today's best part has to be that the son sang the whole nine yards of the birthday song including "happy birthday dear Amma" and " may god bless you" and all that after vehemently refusing to believe that us adults can also have birthdays since 12 last night. After much contemplation and our repeated highlighting of this fact he finally figured it is a possibility and then sang the whole thing;)

This is the first one without mother in law around. In the four years since we moved back she was there with us for three of my last birthdays. She always used to make some sweet for me. I miss her today. Very often these days I find that void more and more. She always used to celebrate every success of mine very visibly and vocally. Even if I told her that today my team got me two birthday cakes or some such small stuff, she used to be very happy and excited about it. No one does it now:(

Going out for lunch with father in law - first time since she left. Later will meet some friends, one of them visiting from the US and been ages since I met. Looking forward to it.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Stitches?

The son ran round and round in circles and in an increased state of excitement - lost control of where he was running and rammed real hard into the sofa :( He has a small sized well on his upper lip and the blood dripped on and on in the evening yesterday - I have never seen so much blood - poor baby. He bore it very well as usual - let the doctors examine him (the ped near the house first and then the one in C9) and in general kept up his spirits throughout - which was the only thing that kept my heart from breaking :(

Today we are taking him to his regular ped in Jayanagar - his opinion is always like the final verdict for me - till he sees him - and recommends the next steps - I won't have any peace.

He might need a minor surgery to close the well on his lip - please keep him in your prayers.

UPDATE: Doc said that the wound was healing well so we should not do anything now. We were more than happy to not do anything now. He said if the scar is bad after it heals we can always fix it later with a minor procedure. We came back home a lot lighter!!