Perceptions

When a child is seen behaving badly and is going off the course beyond the norm, the question/response that is generally aired is

"The child has been brought up very badly. The parents are to blame. What were they doing?"

However, when a child is shaping up nicely with no major problems or issues, the response almost always is 

"Such a nice, pleasant and good natured child". All compliments are for the child. And the poor parents who brought him/her to be what he/she is, is nowhere in the picture. In these instances,

How is it that it is very rare that one ever hears of 

"That kid is great. The parents have done a great job raising him/her" ?

We were shaken !!!

In the early hours of Sun morning ! The feeling was like no other ! The ground actually shifted beneath us ! 

And this is how we realized it !

(Click the pic for an enlarged image) 



We felt the tremor in 2 phases. The first was just about for 5 secs, but the second tremor (after 5 mins or so) lasted for 15-20 seconds.

I find it difficult to describe our feelings during the 5 minute span. "In awe" could be the best word to explain those moments.

For more details on the earthquake, you could visit here

How about you guys in Chennai ? did you feel it as well? I think i felt it only bcoz I was awake. I wouldn't have known if I had been asleep.

We made it at last !

Me and my Buddy (right from school) C !

We had been talking about it for so long. For almost 3 or 4 months, we meant to get together and take our kids out somewhere and be together ! We were not too ambitious. We were not planning on spending the whole day together or something (though it would be wonderful to ). We just wanted to got out in the evening for a couple of hours. Me with Jillu and she with her 2 kids.

A bizarre thought !

But if only it could be true, then, it would be highly useful and avoid so much anxiety and stress! One, I think, every mother would agree :)

The thought is - "If only every mother could be a pediatrician"

It struck me last night when Jillu again fell sick, that I should have become a pediatrician (in spite of the fact that I chose Computer Science over Biology in my 11th std just so that I could avoid rat dissection - yeah I really hated it so much :( . You just need to ask my friends about it) just to avoid yet another trip to her Doc :( .

But then, I really wish there exists a shortened course which every mother could take. Similar to lots of First Aid courses that are available today. It would avoid so much of anxiety, tension, fear, pressure et all. A short one with just the basics, at least to the extent of determining whether a visit to the doc is needed or not, examining whether the chest is clear or is congested yet again. (I am sure cold and cough make up about 95% of Dr visits for every kid ). 

Sometimes, it looks far worse than it actually is and we rush to the doc only for them to tell us that it is not serious and there is no severe congestion. And the reverse also happens to be true where some people leave it too late before visiting the doc ! :(

Understanding

sometimes is a hindrance. For

- it prevents you from disciplining the kids at the appropriate time

- it prevents you from showing your anger/hurt to the person who hurt you in the first place

- it puts you under a disadvantageous position as everything gets cloaked under "hey, you understand right? how can you say/do this? "

Wrong timing?

I think I should have waited for a couple of months before submitting my resignation. Or I should have done it 2 months earlier. As it is, right now, I am caught in between and these 2 months have been real hectic. I am  coming home late daily these days what with the transition going on one side and year end activities on the other end. It would have been easier if I had transitioned the whole thing before, then I wouldn't have been in this situation. Or if I had waited, then it would have been only me who was doing it and I would have been much faster on my own. Now, I have the over all responsibility, but I have to make them (who is taking the KT - Knowledge Transition) do it as they need to understand as well. So the whole process is taking much longer and resulting in late evenings daily for me :(. Late nights or even working through the nights is not new for me but from the time I rejoined work after my maternity leave, I re-aligned myself and made sure that I was home at a decent time (for IT standards) if not early. Of-course, there were exceptions, but for the most part, I always was home at the same time for Jillu. But these weeks have been really hectic, what with my boss being sick and going on long leave, me being all alone in the team as the one other team member was transferred to another team, then the new guys (2 of them) coming in, training them as well as meeting the deliverables single-handedly.  To top it all, 1 of the new guys fell sick with viral infection and did not turn up for 4 days in this week. I am working more now in my notice period than ever before in the past 1 year. I have been unable to spend time with Jillu at all these past few weeks. 

I console myself saying that this is only for a few more weeks and not for much longer.

At a loss for words

Well, I am having trouble blogging non-Jillu stuff. It cannot be called as a writer's block, for I absolutely am no writer :). Just a beginner struggling to find my way, or rather my words.

What to blog about? I know there are thousand and one things to blog about, but nothing comes to my mind yet. Even if I think of something to write, (having a couple of drafts is proof enough for that), I am not able to work around the topic and get it into any presentable shape. When I read it, it seemed so bad and nothing like the other so nice, lovely, so well written blogs that I read.

Some weeks back, in my car driving class, a fellow student was a 80+ years old woman and she was doing a wonderful job. I was really admiring her and her commitment at this age of wanting to learn and having the energy to enroll into a class and going through with it as well. What a way to live and how much she loves life to do that. I should learn from her, for due to various reasons, I am yet to complete the learning and still cannot drive on my own. I wanted to make this a blog post but could not go beyond a few words.

And, I was searching for my specs the other day and could not find it. I was desperately searching for it, for I cannot go to work without that and was calling my MIL as well to find out if I had left it there when I had been there the previous day. When I was searching, the immediate thought that struck me was that how nice it would be if we had a CTRL+F (Find) feature in real life so as to easily locate anything. I really missed the CTRL+F feature then. You won't believe me, but I have been thinking of ways of writing this for the past 2 days, but somehow it never happened. My first thought was to pen it as it is. Then, I thought, no, let me try out a 55 fiction out of this topic. I thought and thought and thought, I thought on the train journey to office, thought whenever my mind was idle, but nothing came out of it. Then  I thought, OK, let me try out a 55 fiction on some other topic. Again,with the same results.

So here I am, having decided to write something, writing about what to write. Hahaha..