Yawwwn!

I seriously master the art of lazying around. It comes so naturally to me. The clock keeps ticking and I would have wasted hours on the net or on the tele. Been doing it for past couple of days and not feeling guilty about it either. Today I am in a mood for hindi soaps, Zee being the only loser channel on Comcast I will while away watching the saans-bahu crap! Just for today and only today!

Dreams..

Last night DH suddenly woke up and turned on the lights middle of the night. I was barely able to open my eyes and asked him what happened. I was so fast asleep and in a confused state I started talking to him in Konkani (he dosent completely understand my mother tounge unfortunately and we speak in Hing-lish). But he already figured out what I was saying and he said he had a dream as if there was a puppy in our bed. Thats it I couldnt sleep after that. Eyes were burning and couldnt even check what the time was but I know it must have been 2-3am, yet I couldnt sleep.

Sometimes dreams feel so real, so damn real as if its actually happening. It has happened to me several times before. Unfortunately nothing as cute as a puppy on the bed [ :-)]. In fact there was a period when I would have a recurring dream. I even knew I was dreaming in that dream and I am telling myself 'this will end now, this will end now', its only a dream!. Isnt that kind of strange?.

Also the fact that in the 'off-guard moments' you talk in your mother tounge (even if you speak 5 different languages :))

And yes finally my husbands' love for dogs has made it to the bedroom :)

Why did I suddenly remember this?

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
Charles Dickens :A Tale of Two Cities

Phew!

I finally made through most dreaded experience which I have been thinking about for weeks. Got my US work visa stamped at Vancouver. I have cribbed earlier about this and each time experience gets only worse. Dealing with DOS or USCIS is painful. My interview was on a Wednesday. I had flown into Seattle Monday night (BTW Deval Patrick, Governer of MA was in the same flight as me on Jetblue) and taken the Greyhound to Vancouver on Tuesday(Greyhound and my trips to Canada - hopefully this is the last one :)) It took 4-5 hours on the bus to get there. I had to take the Sky Train to get to that part of downtown where my hotel was booked. First thing you notice about Vancouver is undoubtedly the scenic views. Beautiful snow capped mountains as a backdrop to the downtown. Its picture perfect. Unfortunately there were quite a few beggars - people seemed to attribute the warmer weather as the reason. As soon as I would reach out for coins for the sky train someone would attack me for a dollar! And I am somehow afraid of beggars. Yes! one of the many things I fear in life, so it was not very pleasent in that sense.

My interview was a disaster, everything that could go wrong went wrong. The Visa Officer was a Fraud Prevention Manager and he just let it all out on me. Basically I lived through the typical Murthy dot com forum case/scenario. I had booked the hotel for only 2 days so I extended in another hotel for 4 days. The previous hotel was not in a comfortable location for me. By this time I couldnt take it; 3 days had passed and I requested my DH to come down and be with me for the weekend as I could not re-enter US and asked him to get extra clothes etc for me. I was basically close to implementing Plan B (and I was secretly relieved). As soon as the weekend passed things changed dramatically. I had provided the additional documents requested on Monday and the Officer called me and asked me to drop my Passport for the visa next day. In a day my visa was processed as if nothing had ever happened and before I knew we were driving back to Seattle on Tuesday. So it took a whole week for the process. Probably if someone reads my post might claim I just complain a lot, but hey I am human and in fact this post dosent justify my experience completely. I do not want it to actually. My experience was much worse than I state here.

After this experience my Plan B has only become more firm now and actually become my Plan A. It will happen very soon. I hope it does!

God & Destiny - you both owe me now! come on! :)

So the cookie crumbles...?

Unpredictable: The economy. What to say on so many job losses everyday, hype or no hype.

Overdone: Landing of the plane on Hudson. I understand it was heroic, but.....(yawn!)

Overestimated: Truth always triumps?

Close of a chapter:

Another chapter in my life is complete. My last working day today. Emails are pouring in from colleagues wishing me success and others stating they will miss me. Whether all of them mean it or not its making me very sentimental. I have been working for such long hours continously last one year and become so attached to the company. Now I am so sad to let go of it. I will be feeling low today definitely. Added pressure being everyone asking me that I quit my job when the economy is at its worst. I just did what I thought was best for me.

I am happy that my Manager did everything possible to keep me and he really wanted me. I am glad he really thought I was value-adding and an asset to the department and company. I am glad that its me who let go of the company (and not the other way around).

I know everything happens for the best!

Gashi etc

Another day of snow yesterday. It wasn't that bad but everybody kept talking about the winter storm and it received more hype than it needed, in Boston at least. Or so I thought sitting comfortably in my couch at home and looking outside :) Anyway the good part about such hype is P worked from home. But its difficult to get things done when P is around, invariably I get lazy. Even he couldnt get much work done.

On the non-lazy front I made Gashi yesterday. I know I am on a roll or what? another new Konkani dish introduced to my husband. It was as close as it could get to my Mom's :)