Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Want to write ...

But cannot.. or won't .. cause the hand is acting up(set) again...

(my bday falls in June, and anyone who wants to send an advance bday gift of a speech to text converter can pls email the id provided - i shall send you my work address. Thanks!)


Despite all the hand issues, this was by far my most proactive week in the last few months. I've arranged to sked an appointment with a doc in India for a second opinion on the hand when i visit soon, and my effort has been duly applauded by those who know me, since it involves foresight and planning, the likes of which seemed to have abandoned me of late. I've initiated uncomfortable, yet essential conversations with my mother. I've taken charge of some things at work that I've wanted to for a while. And more.

I feel light, if nothing else. And clearer. No seriously, there's some things that need to be done, regardless of the outcome simply cause they offer so much clarity. Consequently, after a long time, I feel respect for myself.

The hand's not feeling too great though. And that tyrant, Penguin, she checks this space, and she'll kick my sorry ass tomorrow if I don't stop typing NOW. So bye!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Linking up to something well written ..

Penguin wrote this ... and although I'm not sure I've shared experiences of the exact same kind, it's a thought many friends have pondered over ... read on ... maybe you've thought about it too ...

Friday, February 15, 2008

Tagged ...

Was tagged long ago by someone to do this one ... (I'm terribly sorry for having forgotten who it was, but I'm doing the tag aren't I!)

Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better. Now don’t forget to read the archived posts and leave comments.

Family: Well I don't mention my bro or my dad too often here, completely in line with how much I interact with them, so here's the nicest post I've written for my mum. Apparently I called asking her to read this while she was at work, and she broke down and started sobbing from the sheer senti quotient!!! Oh well ..

Friend: I do mention wayyy many friends here ... Thing with people I'm incredibly close to and in touch with on a daily basis (Mogambo, Penguin, V, others) is that I sporadically mention them SO often, that I've never quite done a dedicated post for any of them! But here's a post I wrote to Shamu when she made it to IIMB last year .. and another for Kavz, the sunshine of my life through 2006.

Myself: Huh. I'm actually stumped... though I think these 3 posts capture me pretty well ... my love for conversation, who I judge and who I admire. Seriously, there's just a little too much about me on this blog to be able to pick and choose.

My love: Yeah whatever. Nexttt....

Anything I like: We're talking words, cooking, broad genres of people, and things I hope the world is never without!

Ok! Now to pass this on!!!
3 familiar people to tag: Penguin, Lucky and Quirky Quill.
2 unfamiliar people ...emm ... ok how about I tag Nutty and Somewhere over the Rainbow! :)

Orkut lameness ...and free grammar tips ..

I thought it was bad enough when on putting up a niceish pic on orkut, I start receiving random friend requests and scraps from guys wanting to "make" friendship. (More on this later)

The pits is when I get that from a WOMAN!!!

Ok so here's the later portion (ref above) and some other grammatical facts I'd like to put out there:

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1. One does not "Make" friendship with another.

Wrong wrong usage ... head hurts... STOP!

You can "be" friends with someone, maybe even "become" their friend, and at most they could "make" you their friend. But you don't "make" friendship! Which reminds me of "Make love... Not friendship"

ORRR... maybe not! :D


2. The word is 'anyway' NOT 'anyways'.

As in "I'll come over anyway" or "Anyway, that's all there is to the story".

Really! That's how it started, and then someone figured they'd add the grammatically incorrect 's' at the end of the word, and suddenly it's caught on!!! So to everyone who's succumbed to this disease - I repeat - It's 'ANYWAY' - NOT 'ANYWAYS'

3. The question tag for a 1st person statement is "Aren't I".

Indeed, the tag "aren't I" exists!!! As in, "I'm totally awesome and talented, aren't I?" (Not necessarily a rhetorical question that...). No it's NOT limited to plural 1st person contexts.

"Ain't" is a more colloquial (and recently turned formally correct) option, but "aren't I" is the proper tag to be used.

Just saying.

4. It's pronounced "OppErtunity" (not spelled, just pronounced like that) NOT "appOrtunity".

And spelled "opportunity", of course. You get the drift ...
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Yes, I'm a NAZI about these things. Yes, that's the end of today's grammar lesson. Oh, I'm much better health-wise and all that :-)

Kbai!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Gimme a break ..

And I mean that in the nicest sense possible!

I've been getting mails and comments on how 'it's been so long since you posted' and 'could you please write something new' and 'we're oh so tired of refreshing and reading that post on intent' that I'm flattered to the T! Sacchi, it's such an ego boost, as I was telling a friend, to have someone push you to write, almost the same as someone saying, we love hearing you talk, get up on that podium and say something, ANYthing!! :-)

I'm just back from a lovely vacation in Malaysia (Langkawi/ Genting and KL) and Cambodia (Siem Reap and Phonm Penh) and will soon regale you with tales of my first ever casino visit, downing and suffering the much renowned 'Happy Pizza' and firing a real AK47 (yeah I know!!! :D) ....pictures will also be shared and many pending tags shall be achieved!

However, the reason that'll all be later, and not right away, is cause I'm down with the worst case of cough and cold. I haven't had it this bad since I was 14 and had to be taken to a hospital all blue lipped and suffocating (there's a story of how i fought with the doc to let me go take my exams from the hospital coz I couldn't stand the thought of giving up my rank - but let's indulge in tales of my geekdom some other time) and hooked up to a saline drip with needles stuck in my arm for 7 (GASP!) days.

Every morning I think I'm better and go to work, spend the day working in aircon and talking normally (frequency AND volume), only to end up with a horrid bout of coughing in the evening that doesn't let me sleep until 3 am. COUGH! Sputter .. GAH!

Yes I've seen the doctor. Yes I have someone to care for me (Penguin cooks and cares for me at times like these - the angel!) and no, I don't think this of all things will kill me. But I'm staying in bed until I feel perfect enough to leave the house, indulge in dramatics (pun intended!) and sing aloud without sounding like a frog princess!

So any blogging will happen only post that. Please to put up with the break in writing, and HEY! send in your sympathies :-) They work faster than meds and are DEF less sleep inducing! :D

See ya all soon! Till then, we're on a break!!! :D

Friday, February 01, 2008

Of intent...

It's been such an awful time, and work has managed to camouflage it all really well. My mum waited a few days to talk to me cause I was either sitting on the seniors' side of the floor and couldn't talk beyond a whisper or cause it was too late my time by the time she got out of her signal disrupting local train journeys in the evening. And there's others who tried getting through, got told i'd call back and never did.

But there's still others I'd make time for. Not even people I manage and get paid to make time for. But people that I have the "intent" for.

Like the Penguin. There's always one random conversation through the day that we do on the phone. There's times I tell her i'll call back, and sometimes 5 hours pass by the time I do, but I do. I call. Cause the intent is there.

Or N, who sits across the floor from me, also on the seniors side of the floor. And even through my busiest days there's still always 5 minutes where I walk over and sit cross-legged on his desk and take the time to catch up. Intent.

Too many friends who went to b-school have demonstrated how they get sucked into a warp of activity. That little zone of familiar people, of busy days and schedules that makes the outside world fade into oblivion. That delusion of being in a society/ neighborhood for life.

Unless there's intent of course.

People have made relationships survive even through these phases. And maintained friendships. Not cause they could. But cause they wanted to. And of course various commitments took up various degrees of time and energy. But it always took intent to fuel any investment of either.

While in b-school, I once asked my future telling friend how long my closest friend, SP, would stay in my life (cause I'd started to see how I was pushing her away as the terms progressed, and it bothered me that I seemed to have little intent to keep our once wonderful friendship going) and he told me "As long as you'll want her to".

It really was as simple as that. Intent. Ironic that S is today in the same bschool I went to, and we're going through a role reversal of sorts, and now having wised up to this bschool routine, I'm just calmly biding my time for the day that she indicates she's ready to have me back in her life. It'd be so easy to doubt her intent, had we not had all that time together before we parted ways. But now, we've seen enough to inspire faith in me about my place in her life.

What I think I started out saying, and lost somewhere in deliberate meandering of prose, is that regardless of how busy, how stressed or how crazy we think our lives are, if we're not able to accommodate some people, it's likely cause we don't want it badly enough. (No, I don't enjoy the conflict ridden conversations I have with my mom these days, and let me not even get into the issue of the "other" people I'm 'avoiding').

Conversely, if we're constantly making space and time for some others, even looking forward to investing that space and time in them, it's a sign of something bigger, hopefully better. We're lucky to feel intent at all. And for that, I hope we're being thankful.