Laptop - Busy look

Have you ever been in meetings where everyone is trying to do a couple of things the same time, balancing one delicate topic with other, trying to figure out answers simultaneously?

I find myself constantly at these kind of meetings, sometimes I am truly handling a few things together and sometimes I am just trying to look “Busy”. Is this attitude good? I dunno, but I do know makes me feel a little better when I am hunched up in front of laptop (like the rest of the crowd) typing away to glory while listening to another person talk.

My laptop has almost become compulsive habit. I go to my office, shrug my jacket off and open my laptop before heading out to do any actual work. The first hour in the morning is totally devoted to checking emails, replying to them and just getting into groove.

The ironical thing about this obsession of mine is that my work is not actually computer related. Of course, I just started on mask design and vending, but that just forms 20 % of my workload, but mostly I do not need to be near my laptop to work.

However, without checking my email every hour I feel completely disconnected (inspite of having an IP phone in my office), isolated, torn away from the known world. May be it comes from the fact that as soon as my office door closes, I am alone in the room facing the walls and the books? Or maybe it is just something all the engineers feel? Or perhaps it is just me, I constantly need someone to be around me (not talking really, but just be there around) and in office, it is my laptop which fills this void of mine!

Well, for most it is simpler to hunch up in front of laptop and the world thinks work is in works :)

Wondering/Wandering conscious!

As I sat watching “Blow” a movie about drugs and coke, I found myself wondering – “Does coke really have so much power? Wonder how it tastes” and then I was horrified by the way my thoughts went…. Is this how people are tempted, does wondering often lead to trails and then addiction?

I think not, it must definitely take more than just thought to just step forward and go ahead and do something which you have been told not to!!

How many times have we gone against our parents, done things forbidden and enjoyed every moment of it? I can count a few and to tell ya the truth I regret none. Well, perhaps the reason for such exists to the fact that my conscious talks to me all the time. It tells me “hey Aparna this is not right” and I try to listen to it (most of the times anyway), perhaps that’s what saved me from a thing like regret!

Well, conscious or not, the “forbidden” thoughts sometimes do sneak in .. and I find myself wondering……………. Yet again!

Snow Flower and Secret fan- thoughts

As I turned each page of “Snow flower and secret fan” I felt emotions welling up inside me. It was difficult not to associate with some characters in 19th century china. The foot-binding was a saga new to me and I found myself fascinated by the things done in name of beauty. The book describes in detail the procedure of foot-binding and your heart goes out to “third sister” whose cries for “mercy” and “ I won’t do it” are left unheard resulting to her eventual death. .

It is amazing how a woman is always the worst adversary of another woman. I cannot understand how a woman who has personally known the pain and hurt of foot binding, put her own daughter through the very same trails. Isn’t a mother supposed to be your sieve for all things painful in your life? Isn’t a mother supposed to nurse and protect her young one?

Life for a woman must have been an entirely different thing, her very existence depending on them having “sons”. A child bearing vassal is what she was in true terms. A woman’s world not her own but spun intricately around men’s, made to accommodate the desires of “their men”. Yes, indeed life was different!

But inspite of such trails, the same 19th century women find their own way of rebellion –Nu Shu, the women’s secret language. I thought it was in it’s own an attempt at making their own independence self-felt. The fact that Nu-Shu had nothing to do with men’s existence but everything to do with women’s itself describes the radical nature of it. The fact that woman were not allowed to “literate” themselves, yet choose their own way to do so… choose their way to speak with the rest of their kind.. away from the prying eyes of the world in general.. makes you realize that the oppressed are not truly so.. the caged birds always find a way to flutter !!!!

Another attempt at penning the thoughts.. I still write .........

I still write.. but mostly in my mind. There are times when I do open my laptop and decide to write those thoughts down, but before I can do that…….. I drift away to the yonder land of work or chat. Sometimes I almost wish I had that tape-recorder where I could record my thoughts to just pen them later on. I let my vanity at times dwell on those lines and imagine that “if only I had that” I would have made a great writer. Perhaps give a few authors run for the money ;).

Well, ambition is always been one of my greater vices.. I still haven’t done anything worthwhile, yet I would like to. I would like to someday be known well in the circles I work in, known as “ahh the smart gal”…. but mostly someone who is likable but yet successful. Can that every happen?? I dream a lot, and more often than not those dreams drive me and make me what I am perhaps.

This of course doesn’t mean that I don’t currently enjoy my life.. I do actually. I just switched jobs and at the moment I really like what I am doing….. I still am in love with the person I married, even though I burst into tears without reason and am the howler of the century ……….I think I am lucky to have him in my life. I do miss my home in India but hey looks like I have a home here as well now… yes life has been good to me (touchwood) and I am enjoying living it.

Perhaps in this contentment lies in my lethargy of writing on record.. perhaps I may get over it and finally start blogging regularly……………??

Thoughts..constant companion of mine!

I have this weird connection with my brain cells-I think too much. I am constantly thinking about something, even when I am quietest or the loudest I am having this constant conversation with my mind.

For this reason alone I find it difficult to comprehend how some of my friends (especially guys) claim to have those moments of “blankness” when the mind is like a blank canvas. Often when asked the question “So, what are you thinking?” people tend to say “Nothing”. But I think that is gross understatement of facts.

To me my brain is the most unaccountable machinery. The data it processes can range from trivial, crude, stumbling meanderings to the computationally impressive to the occasional creative and inspirational insights. It is a scientifically proven fact that a person’s brain is active all the time, waking and sleeping, producing and shifting between what scientists call “distinct brain wave forms”.

So with such an active brain such as ours it just cannot be possible to have a moment of nothingness.

Thoughts come unbridled always buzzing, humming, soaring, roaring, diving, and then buried in mud. If nothing else I find myself wondering why?

Sometimes I wish I could stop that “lil’ voice” , sometimes I wish I could have those moments of blankness within myself...I want to experience it.! May be that is what people call having peace?? ……. Hmmmmm, That’s something new to think about now!

A tryst with sking

Have you ever felt your bones aching and your muscles (if any) protesting? Today I feel every square inch of my body and oh boy it hurts.

My tryst with Skiing didn’t go down well either with my body or me. I have just one word to describe my skiing skill “Sucks”. For the life of me I could not Ski on my feet. The only skiing (you can also call it sliding) I did was on my poor lil’ butt. Considering the fact that God has not been very generous for this particular part, I was afraid I would wear it down further by sliding again and again on the ice.

Boy oh boy, I was a spectacle to see, the only one in the “beginners class” not to begin at all, Try as I may I could not Ski an inch. I felt like a bugs bunny (a rather unstable one) with my Skis, trying to wade my way through the white stuff called “snow”!

At the end of it all, I threw my beautiful “bright orange” color cap on ground, took the Ski off my iced boots and sat down at a corner gazing longing at those beginner's slope which I could not conquer.

Sigh! I saw a friend of mine (who was also doing this for the first time) Ski on the damned slope so smoothly. I could just sit and stare and think “ahh is there any ice sport which I can do well?” .

I may try this once more again though, I like to think that perhaps its not me- it was one of those unlucky days. But I sure hope second time around will be a charm (like it was with ice-skating for me). May be” try, try, try again” works, if it doesn’t…well I am switching over to snow tubing (hopefully that stops when it supposed to!) ……………..

friends...boon n' bane

Friends… the word by itself means so much… they form over years, bonded to us by those tiny threads of incidents and time shared …. One never knows when those “strangers” become your friends. There are times when these friends and their friendships define life for you.

But today I find myself questioning the strength of them… over time we loose a few along the way.. some just ending coz of loosing in touch and some ending due to other reasons.

I still sometimes look back at one, with a huge regret…. The decision to let go was mine, the relationship hurt too much. So with as much as dignity I could gather I let go…slowly, smoothly. That relationship was lovely while it lasted, but perhaps some friends are better let go…..even if they do take a part of u with them

Today, I think I am about to loose another one who matters….my heart feels heavy, I tell myself “I don’t care” but I think I do. As I think about what we have shared and been through I find myself overwhelmed. I wonder what changed.. subtly something has. May be I have!

I think I no longer take as much effort as I used to ……. “keeping in touch” seems to have lost its meaning on me. I used to keep in touch while I was in school, and now while I am working itz me again. To be fair… this person (X) is not bad either ..when I happen to slag X makes sure we are still going on. I have always considered X to be a boon, but lately I think a feeling of “being taken for granted” is overcoming my senses.

I am not sure if I am being true here.. but I need to sort things out in my mind and for this reason alone, I turn to my “blog” again. Sometimes written words lay the truth out more distinctly ………………………….