You got the job.

The usual demand at interviews - Tell me something about yourself. Hopefully I won't have to hear this in the near future, but if I do, my response will be "Deep down I'm very shallow."

What the..! (or Part 1 in the series of 'I Just Don't Have a Clue'

Just how tech-unsavvy am? Internet Explorer 7 blinks when I launch it on my new laptop, and I'm staring at the screen wondering why. It asks me to choose personal settings, etc; but doesn't allow me to cos it's blinking, and I have no clue why. So I stare at it for a while, then close it. Then after a minute of waiting, I think perhaps it's fixed itself so I can launch it again. Oho, but no. It still blinks. Ok then. I'll just wait till someone who is marginally better at it than I am happens to be home when I'm trying this out (read husband). But I so know what'll happen. He'll say do this, I'll say why, he'll say just do it, I'll say but it has to make sense.....and so on.
Alas!

Toilet P&L

The recession has the corporate world implementing cost-cutting plans with a vengeance, and sometimes I'm inconvenienced, but mostly I understand, and try to do my bit to help save whatever resources I can. But here's a weird side effect of cost cutting...
They've recently introduced movement-sensor-driven light fixtures in the office loos, which are all very fine, but do the new high-tech systems have to be anti-women? Consider the following example.
I sit when I use the loo cos I'm a woman and proud of it. But when I'm in the middle of my little task, the light goes off. And why? Cos there's nothing below it. The sensors in the stalls have been placed exactly above the place I would stand in front of the commode if I were a man. As this spot remains unoccupied once I'm seated, the @#$% object assumes that there's no one in the loo and switches off!
My workaround for the problem is to do leg lifts. Might as well get some exercise while I'm at it. At the current rate, I can book a reduction of 1 mm off my tummy by the end of the 1st quarter.

Guess who's back

I'm out of hibernation now. As I told a friend of mine, I was taking a break from communication for a while. There were too many things to deal with - stolen stuff, change of job, following up with insurance on stolen stuff, adjusting to the new job...the list goes on. A lot happened in the last few weeks that I wanted to write about, but there was a huge gap between wanting to write and actually sitting down and writing. I couldn't bridge that gap, and somewhere inside I really didn't want to. I needed some space and I took it. I'm back now cos life has settled into a kind of routine, and I'm ready once again to share. To come back to the land of the communicative. To talk about what's going on with me, around me. So my good friends who read my blog - yes all blooming 5 of you - the bitch is back!

Auto-suggestion

Those who know me well know that I've had a long, colourful history of interactions with autorickshaw drivers all over India. The most recent one of note, that didn't end in me losing 5 years of my life due to stress, went something like this...
I need to be somewhere by 8 am these days, and it's such a joy taking an auto at 7 am, cruising down half-empty roads with the cool Bangalore morning breeze tickling your tonsils.
I noticed today that the auto driver was enjoying it too. He had his head wrapped Arafat style, which not only protected him from the said cool breeze, but (as I soon discovered) also deprived him of peripheral vision! He'd gaze entranced at the sight of the rolling lawns of Cubbon park, and because he had to turn his head to the left to actually see it, he wasn't aware that slowly he'd begin pointing the nose of the auto in that direction too. And when he finally looked forward, he'd jerk to a halt with an "Uhh" sound because a motorbike had suddenly materialised in front of him out of nowhere. Then a few kilometers down, he'd be lost again at the sight of some other park to the right, and of course his auto would follow. Then, "Uhh"!
So for the entire 12-14 kilometers, we went wheeeeee (meander left) - Uhh - whoooooo (meander right) - Uhh - wheeeeee - Uhh - whoooooo - Uhh.
I soon found myself chanting this in my head again and again - wheeeeee - Uhh - whoooooo - Uhh - wheeeeee - Uhh - whoooooo - Uhh!
Much like the adoring crowd at Obama's victory speech, chorusing fervently, "Yes, we can!"

For my brother

Tomorrow will see me at a new place of work - a conscious decision to change, taken at the urging of the voice in my head that kept saying I had to do this, despite there being zero guarantees for a better future, and the hard fact that I would be leaving the one person behind that made going to work as personally rewarding as anything I would choose to do in my spare time.

This song is for him:

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up,a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to
A time for peace, I swear its not too late

The Epiphany

You know what would make life perfect?

If choconut sundaes could hug.