Wagging Away

Random Thoughts I decided, on a whim, to take a career assessment test. I sat through about 20 minutes of random questions at the end of which the computer screen would exactly determine what type of person I was, what my skills were, what my strengths were (and therefore presumably my weaknesses), and what sort of job would best suit my temperament (top 20 it said). Of course, the test was free online. But not so the assessment (obviously). What I got was a long page with little tidbits (H is great; she'd make a fine manager, wonderful writer, excellent performance artist and homemaker and etc) interlaced with long paragraphs of blanks... to be filled in when you paid up for the executive package or some such thing. Every description was designed to set off alarm bells in your mind about your general capabilities unless of course you actually ponied up the money to be reassured you weren't a flaming failure in the blanked out parts!!! So here are my edited "results...

Frost was right ... there are always two ways. And if you choose the one less trodden-the hidden implication being it's oh so exciting and full of derring-do - we would be wise to remember that is usually the beginning to a book full of unfortunate events ( I am still in the midst of my lemony snicket saga). Consider that if you have something cooking on a stove... clearly you have choice to turn it off or leave it on... the path less trodden would dictate you leave it be and see what happens. But then it is easy to see that the end result can only be unhappy (people yelling, alarms going off and a generally pissed neighbourhood is sure to ensue presuming there are no fatalities and your house is still standing of course). But you may argue, that is not really a choice you need to make and Frost was arguing for something more profound, ambiguous, lasting maybe? Here's a scenario (I am living this as we speak of course): Important things to be done... cleaning the house, preppin...

Random Thoughts Another Hallmark holiday looms ahead : Father's day. The sop to the poor left-out halves of parenting just so that Mother's day doesn't look biased or anything. Because surely we must encourage all the poor dads who're just waiting or appeciation? But here's the thing-I don't think so... Moms ? Sure they love all the fuss and frippery, the gifts, the reiterations of "I love you," the cutesy things that families are supposed to do... Dads on the other hand are quite happy to come home to happy families, to kids who're doing their own thing and happy about it and general peace in their little slice of the world. They don't care do they whether we give them the best gift to mark a day? Cos surely if they wanted it they would just go out and buy it for themselves. That's what makes them dads...not moms who wait for someone to notice they want something and then buy it for them when they're not looking. And then feel bad if s...

Random Thoughts The great immigration debate rages on... now it's almost comical how the two "sides" are behaving. First of course we have the endless row of "liberal" Hispanic reps/celebrities who profess their great love for this their new land (only if they can of course not speak the language, eat their own food (which is de-lish by the ways), look down upon everyone else, continue to moan about how they are regarded as second class citizens, and then proceed to prove their point by singing the national anthem of their adopted English-speaking land in Spanish, the tongue of their left-behind not-so-wanted-except-in-my memories motherland!!! Oh god, talk about shooting yourself in the foot.... And then the people that proclaim themselves defenders of this land are even more embarrassingly childish!!! Instead of building on the "let them shoot themselves in the foot" sentiment they go on to bluster about protecting the country's traditions and p...

Was lolling about on a typical Sunday morning unable to sleep cos of a horrendous cold that's been bugging me for the past week or so...Anywyas, I got around to thinking of my grandmom (I am a sort of random person... get it?). She passed away this past winter (January 2006) at ripe old age of almost 80 something... I have always missed having the grandmas described in stories and that my husband has had the good fortune to have. His grammy is a small sweet courgeous woman of apparently unending talent and courage, who refuses to cowed by life, disability, constant pain and a pretty typical household that depends entirely on her good cheer without quite realizing or acknowledging it. His other grandmom I never got to know but sounds like a woman of great humour and wisdom, beloved by all she knew and an established authoress. I on the other hand had just one grandmom all my life. My paternal grandmom died (I so prefer euphemisms-died is just cruel to say) when my dad was in his 20...

Random Thoughts Hmm ... I've been away a while... so news update... GWB is tapping our phones!!! My god I've been listening to all the rattle and rumpus about this... it really annoys me that now all of a sudden people can see how bad this guy is just because he's down... I feel quite sorry for the guy now and honestly at least he has the gumption to keep doing the wrong thing .... the democrats on the other hand are the eternal crying, hand wringing, whining, complaining machine... They remind me of the quintessential playground bully's sidekicks... the ones that can't do the punching but are more than happy to kick a guy when he's down just to look good...!!! Honestly the democratic voters deserve better than a sidekick... they need a bully of their own... okay that's my political piece... I don't care really... I don't vote, I am definitely having my phone tapped (the benefit of having a father who used to work in Saudi Arabia), possibly having my...

Random Thoughts All right, I just got back from a good weekend of chatting with family... Funny thing how growing up together can mould thoughts and character the same way even when we're far apart... My brother and I ended up starting blogs about the same day, and with the same sort of layout, concept and even our topics of the day are similar!!! except of course he hasn't learnt the value of fewer words to make a stronger point (I'm so the older sis)...Life is odd in the turns it takes... I would never have predicted that I would be so far away from home and that my brother would be the one to stay back... Oh well... time to get back to work I gess... will write more when I can think of something useful to say!!!

Random Thoughts I am so missing home... home is India (for those who didn't quite figure that one out from the immigration rant!) ... Somehow 8 years into living in the US surrounded for the most part by people who are understanding, can point to India on a world map and intelligent, I still feel very alien... Just want the morning sounds back, the milkman dropping off the bags at your door, amma saying her prayers in the morning, cycles ringing their bells, smoke-belching buses roaring past the house, vegetable vendors hawking their fresh wares, kids running to catch the morning school bus!!... and the smells of coffee, milk, food cooking for breakfast and for lunch boxes, garbage bins overflowing (okay so I don't really miss that one too much), agarbathi lit up ...hmmmmmmmm I think I had a pretty decent life back home, affluent but not filthy rich with a certain groundedness that comes of travelling in full buses and hanging out the door by one hand and praying you reach safe...

Random Thoughts I read a lot of stuff from serious fiction all the way to what is unflatteringly described as "chick-lit" (mostly by soulless guys but we'll let that one pass) One trend in the latter genre is to write stuff that looks airy and trendy and says pretty much nothing at all. Into this genre arrives the latest episode of plagiarism by a harvard student no less. What kind of state is this country's education in when English majors who're presumably preparing for a world of writing in some form or the other don't have enough original words in their heads that they must resort to mass copying from already not so wonderful prose? Paragraphs just lifted with altered words scattered about do not orginal fiction make. It is bad enough that we have to deal with supposed brilliant pieces of prose like "devil wears Prada" ... glorifications of a self-preoccupied generation devoted to inane hobbies... oh like buying shoes and the latest designer wear...

Random Thoughts So I was listening to the news today (as usual since I am such an intellectual!) and heard this piece on the "great immigration debate"... First of all it's the great Mexican immigrant debate affecting all the other people pretty much insignificantly!!! Here's my take: Firstly, I am an imigrant (without any plans of staying on here if I can help it) secondly, I am democratic and pretty liberal i.e I think I am a reasonably understanding person and sympathetic to the underdog and would prefer if Bush hadn't been voted into office the second time... but you know what luckily it still is a democracy and obviously 51% of the people felt strongly enough about him... besides I don't vote and it's not my country.... Thirdly I do have a daughter who was born here and so feel some ties to this place that has given me a career and a family and am always asking myself if I want to pursue residency here.... So with that let me say I have no sympathy a...