How time flies…

Its 11 PM…I am about to bid good-bye the day that I still look forward to every year…..My birthday (who doesn’t? – not mine, but for their own)

But today, I spent some time thinking about how things change with time. Birthdays, for example, have changed a lot in the past 25 years… (No, I am not 25, but the birthdays before that hardly count :))

When I was in school (primary), birthdays were mostly about the number of children coming for your birthday party. My family wasn’t big on having parties with many children around; our birthdays were celebrated low-key surrounded by siblings and parents. But I remember going for my classmates’ parties and I think that the motto was “The more, the merrier”.

Going on to birthdays in high school (after we moved to India), it was mostly about the excitement of collecting the daily post to see how many of my friends have sent me cards. The cards would start coming in a week before the birthday and would continue to come till almost a week after the birthday. I remember keeping count to see whether I had made more friends than last year based on the number of cards. A phone call to the home landline on the birthday would be the icing of the cake.

Birthdays in college were again about cards and maybe even some small gifts from friends. Being in hostel and living on a meager pocket money which included TA, we couldn’t afford any big gifts, so a bookmark or a small gift item would be the special something to get from and give to special friends. Letters and cards from classmates, hostel mates, friends who weren’t in this college…that was the time of abundance. 

It was towards the end of college that we got ourselves email IDs and promised to mail each other long after we left college. So the first year or two after college, birthdays were less about postal cards but more about emails from friends and especially e-cards. Hallmark, Bluemountain…you name it, we’ve been there sending e-cards on birthdays and sending “thank you” cards as a response to e-cards received. 

Then we got jobs…life started revolving around new people, new friends. With salaries, we could now afford to buy better gifts and we were back to sending postal cards, only this time they cost more than 10 bucks and we didn’t feel bad buying them. Along with the job came the mobile phone, and birthday wishes started coming in the form of SMS and mobile calls. 

This trend continues, only now, we check social networking sites to get our birthday wishes. I spent a good time on Facebook today, checking messages from friends and family and replying to them. The feeling of being remembered is definitely nice, but I do have to say that I miss the old times. I mean, I am not going to log in to FB after 10 years to check the messages that I got today…but even now, I can open my cupboard and take out my collection of cards that I have collected since school days and see what my friends and dear ones wrote to me years ago. 

I think we should all try and make it a point and send cards (actual cards) at least to our dearest friends and family. We all know how it feels to get a card and open it and read everything in that card…the admiring of the pictures and the colors used for writing, the stickers used (we girls do that :))… No e-card, e-message or SMS is ever going to come close to that feeling. And as usual…I really do hope and pray that our children will once know this nice feeling.

I stand before you...

So I have completed 8 years in my company. We have a great training program and a department dedicated towards tracking the trainings that you attend. I am not a great fan of trainings, mainly because I prefer doing my work in whatever time I am in office. And since we’re not a technical team, the trainings that we have to attend are mainly soft skill trainings.

To cut a long blog short, let me just say that I have been successful in dodging one training in particular for all these years. Presentation skills. Now you might think, “What’s the big deal about a Presentation skills training?” Those who know me well, also know that I am not comfortable addressing a crowd. And when I say ‘not comfortable’, I mean that my fingers go numb, my voice starts shivering and all I want is for the world to swallow me when it comes to having to stand up and do something as simple as introducing myself in a crowd (I know, when I say crowd you must be thinking 100’s of people – well sadly that’s not the case; a crowd for me is as much as 2 people that are not my best friends).

Fortunately or unfortunately, the “training gap” finally caught up with me and I was forced to attend this training earlier this week. I even woke up and told Lindo that I was going to call in sick. But he made a very compelling argument (If you don’t go this time, you’ll have to go the next time. Might as well get over with it.)….now that made sense.

So I reached the training room, met the co-participants and needless to say as you might have already guessed (or otherwise what’s the big deal blogging about it?) I managed to talk in front of people I didn’t know. In the beginning I was shivering and worried but by the end of the 2^nd day, I was pretty confident.

Well, it might not be the same as when I will have to make a formal presentation and I am still in awe of people who seem to be able to do this effortlessly, but it was a huge leap for me. Yesterday I had to conduct a training for a few people from my team and I have to give credit to the training (the trainer and the other participants) for playing a big role in making this happen.

Coming around to what made me think so much about this and wanting to write about it is the fact that I hope that my boys will not face this kind of aversion towards performing / speaking in public. Children nowadays have the opportunity to do these things at a very tender age and this will definitely take away that huge monster that’s hiding in my closet – Stage fright. I hope they all make use of these facilities and implement them well in their lives.

The card maker in me....

I have been making cards in my free time. It's a hobby and one that I really enjoy.

For my birthday Lindo and a few friends from office gifted me a printer to help me digital stamps thereby taking the card making to the next level.

Just sharing a few cards I made recently.









This one was for my colleague's birthday.












This one was for a friend's wedding.


















My friend's birthday.

















And one last one:
I made this one for my cousin's wedding.





All the digital stamp used in these cards are Sliekje and MelonHeadz freebies.

And the circus has begun....

If we thought that our carefree days were over when we had our boys ...we were wrong. We never realised that carefree days actually continued till children started formal education. And formal education they both started earlier this month.

One good thing that has come from this is that we actually have a timetable now. They get up early and sleep early as well. The boys who used to sleep at 10 PM every day have now started going to bed at 8:30 PM.....and that too because they are tired. They supposedly “rest” in the bus on their way back from school and therefore stopped having their previously customary afternoon nap.

Changes so far:

Nathan has started colouring inside the lines. He likes school. I haven’t figured out what else he has learned / done there yet, but I am glad he enjoys going to school.
Tim never mentions what he did there. Yesterday he told me “There are things going on in school”. I wonder what....

Another wonderful thing that has come together with school is this wonderful concept of “uniforms”. I know all the mommies out there are nodding their heads. It is such a relief to dress them in uniforms. No more “I want jeeeeeeans” or “I don’t want this t-shirt”.....just plain uniforms!
For the time being they’re even happy polishing their shoes when they’re back....

As long as it lasts.......























Love,
Mel

Updates and thoughts on the new year

I know it’s been a while and I thought it was time for an update.

• I can finally do two things I like at the same time; I can draft my blog entry AND stay in bed now. Yes, I finally got my laptop after a long wait that was surely worth it.
• We got a TV. Not too great a news considering that we were very happy without one.
• The boys are growing up (that’s not new) and they are getting diplomatic too. (“Is mama pretty or ugly?” “You’re my mother!”).
• My mom had broken her arm and I left my men behind and stayed with Mom in Kerala for a week. That was definitely a milestone for all of us.
• I completed 7 years at work and I asked the management not to promote me this year because I wanted more time to spend at home since the boys are starting school this year and it is important that we can get them set in a routine. More responsibilities would not help me do that.

That’s pretty much what has been going on. The new year has been pretty much the same as it was last year. It doesn’t even feel like a “new year”. It’s just another year that will get over before we know it. But I do hope that it proves me wrong and turns out to be a great one.

Birthday wishes

Today is my brother-in-law's 30th birthday.
But he's not here to celebrate it with us. In another 37 days we will have his 1st death anniversary. I am sure he's having the best birthday party ever in heaven right now.....

God bless you!

Factorials and Pahiyaa

Now with the boys having overcome their first hurdle in the big race called education, I have just had my first anxiety attack too....the first of probably many more to come.

Working in a department that mainly consists of women (many of them mothers) often gives me a preview of things to come. I am completely aware of what we will have to face with the boys going to school and I know my limitations. I just didn't know that I had so many!!!

Now, I have made a broad classification of subjects where I can help them and subjects where Lindo will have to pitch in.

My subjects: Anything that doesn't include any equations or laws....and of course, no Hindi and Kannada. I am willing to take up any subject that requires the child just to grasp the concept (biology, geography, history, English...).

Most of you know that I am linguistically challenged when it comes to our national language....yes, I hang my head in shame and confess....I don't speak Hindi. I am much better at understanding now, but that's the extent of it.

Discussing Mathematics taught in primary school really gives me the goosebumps. I hardly know my multiplication tables even now. I get stuck with any mathematic problem and I am convinced that I wasn't taught half the things in school (Sorry my dear Maths teacher). Suddenly during my recent conversation with my colleague conjured the picture of 'n!' in my mind. I tried to explain it to my colleague, but we seemed equally puzzled. I was sure it has something to do with maths....but to no avail.

After asking a few of our colleagues, we came to the conclusion that n! is read 'n factorial'. I know you're thinking "DUH!"...but that was a big news to me. Further probing of colleagues' brains taught me what factorials were all about. Armed with this new found knowledge, I confidantly marched over to Lindo to show off. I asked him, "How do you read n!?" and promptly came the answer.....the correct one, with examples. My decision was made at that moment. Lindo is the one to teach Maths.

The world still holds a few secrets that I have failed to understand. Balancing equations in Chemistry, the complete world of physics and of course, Mathematics....maybe I can learn along with the boys....I can only hope.

P.S. Pahiyaa means 'wheel' in Hindi :))