It has got to end

Almost set to go. The bags are packed and the tickets and passports are in my bag. But I feel so different to what I did just before the happenings in Mumbai.

I feel rage, sorrow, horror ...and the hostage situation is still going on. It is obvious that it is not just the whites who are being targetted. It is all the 'infidels'.

Your God, their God, my God or any God in whose name such things are done, will damn their souls to all eternity for all that they are doing now, all that they have done in the past and what they will undoubtedly continue doing in the future. If I had a gun now, I would have willingly shot the bastards.

But anger is not for now. I say Om Shanthi shanthi shanthi: and think of what Gandhiji said: an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

When will all this end and how?

Born or made?

Had this really heated argument with friends here yesterday.

Perspective #1: All kids are born with innate intelligence. It is how life and circumstances enable them to apply what they were born with that creates geniuses and super-intelligent kids – ie, everyone has the ability to ‘shine’ but only some are given the circumstances that enable them to do so.

Perspective #2: Only some kids are born with the ability to be highly intelligent and to do well academically and otherwise. That is why not all kids are bright and superachievers because they don't have that ability .

Three of us screamed like banshees for 5 minutes, trying to convince each other that our perspective was the right one. The fourth one was waiting for the right time to make her point. After 5 minutes, we all had to split to complete various other chores at home. So the debate was inconclusive. Just as well, as otherwise, being mature, intelligent women, we might have come to blows;-)

Now, which one is the right perspective?

Counting down now …

… and only 4 more days to go.

Feeling faint trickles of excitement.

Also, trepidation when I think of how much I want to squeeze into those 6 weeks away.

And annoyance at having to repack my bags for the nth time to make sure it is all within the measly 20 kg baggage weight that I am allowed (I hate the fact that just because I am not flying from or to the US, my baggage allowance is so drastically reduced - that's just so wrong).

And just sheer irritation when I think of the number of flights – 4 – that I have to take to get to my destination.

WLG-AKL-SIN-DEL-DDN – here I come.

Checking the checklist

I am getting nervous.

So many last minute things to do before going away to Bharat and I can't remember half of them.

Yes, I have made a checklist, but the problem is that I forget many of the things that pop into my mind, before updating the checklist...

I should find some way of making sure that my checklist is complete and that I complete all the things on it. Heaven help me!

Goodbye Helen

I really enjoyed this au revoir piece on Helen. Funny, not too maudlin.

Helen had to go not because she was bad for NZ (au contraire), but because we'd gotten really bored with seeing her mug on telly for the last nine years.

And, in spite of an Aussie newspaper calling us druken slugs for having voted a former investmnent banker to power, I am still looking forward to John Key.

My first freegan encounter

While waiting at the supermarket checkout on Sunday, I was idly flicking through a mag on all things green. And in there was an article on the food fad known as ‘freeganism’.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

Oops! (or is it actually sigh?)

It’s now more than two weeks at the new job, and things couldn’t be any different or any better.

There is such a strong team culture and doing things as a team is the norm here. And I actually heard words like well done and perfect applied to work done all the time. And of course the fact that work is only 8km away from home and I can drive in each day and get free parking. Any wonder that I can’t stop grinning?

It is a whole new world of GA (general aviation), RPLs (recreational pilot licences) and what not. And it is such fun (yes, fun).

But there’s a fly in every ointment. My own personal dhristhi pariharam. The hardest thing is not the jargon, but getting used to and recognising a whole set of ‘new’ people. I am beginning to suspect that this is something I am rather hopeless at. And this is because....read on.

I went down to the main kitchen to get a cappuccino this morning. Saw a whole crowd of blokes hanging around there. Said hi to them and waited for the machine to make my cappuchino. One of the chaps looked strangely familiar. I sneaked another quick look at him and decided I must have seen him:
a. on the train to Wlg in my previous job
b. he had been a retail assistant in one of the shops I frequented
c. he had been on TV, that’s why he looked familiar.

For some reason, I was convinced that it was option c that was the right one.

It would have been alright if I had stopped with just thinking that. But me, I have to talk, don't I? So I said to him, have we met before? He gave me a very strange look and said yes, we have, we had all our IT training together last week. Then it hit me, he was J, another newbie like me in my workplace and we’d gone through two 2-hour systems training sessions together just a few days ago. And I thought I’d seen him on TV!!! OMG! How could I. How did the TV even come into the picture? I’ve officially lost it.

I apologised profusely and said all the right things about how my memory was a like a sieve and he was nice enough to come up with some of his own faux pas. But this is worrying. I can’t be so scatter-brained. Just not good enough.

And ...this isn't the first time such a thing has happened to me.