St.Louis Part II

[There is a Part I which I haven't written about, it was my first trip to the US, I would still think Part I was more exciting and I literally lived life like there was no tomorrow, I will save that for some other time]

I am going to India in another two weeks, after a year and half on a two and half week vacation, the excitement is just beginning to kick in, I will be home for Diwali, to say am thrilled would just be an understatement. As I was trying to get the suitcases out to get started on packing, I was just thinking about how life has been for me, this last one and half years.

Being on the wrong side of 25 years 150 days, you are bound to have met people from all cross-sections of society, changing your perspective about life. I have been so lucky for the kind of people I have met and have grown to be friends with in St.Louis, staying away from home for long can take a toll on you sometimes, I must say that I have never felt homesick (barring a few odd moments here and there), life always has been exciting, I never really had the time to sit back and think. Those friday night movies, impromptu shopping getaways, In-a-minute lunch and dinner plans, after work parties, mini trips to places around here, my personal favorite being the potlucks (reason: anything and everything) fun unlimited, food limited :).

Work life has just been great (I would not prefer to talk about the not so great part of it), I have got to work with some amazing people, people who have been around even when computers were worked with punch cards, learnt some priceless lessons, technical and otherwise. Well there have been days when I have had to go without my regular quota of sleep, but well I can discount that, for part of work is what is challenging and exciting and keeps you up without getting bored about the work you are doing.

Onto my favorite part, traveling and activities:

A get-together with friends from college is a regular and is something I look forward to, we usually meet once every 3 months and I come back all exhausted and tired after laughing incessantly and having a great time :)

Las Vegas and Grand Canyon: I loved it more the second time, cos this time we stayed overnight in the Canyon, watched the sun set and sun rise, an experience of a lifetime. Watched the circue de soleil show and gambled like crazy.

Tampa : Beach house party, jet skiing and parasailing, what a trip it was :)

Dallas and Austin: A very casual and chilled out trip, played paint ball for the first time..

Seattle : One trip where every one of my friends from college who were in the US made it, it was memorable for more reasons than one, my first camping experience..

This is the only major road trip that I was on and probably my only big trip with people from St.Louis, the Breckenridge- Colarado trip.

This trip needs a very special mention, It was my first road trip, with so many new people I was just getting to know, about 21 of us, 4 days. I decided to be a part of the party at the very last minute and am so glad I decided to go. My first experience with the snow, skiing and snow mobiling in Breckenridge is an experience that I would treasure, though I kept falling all over the place, it was still fun. Those wooden log cabins and amazing people, a perfect thanks giving retreat..

And a trip to SFO and Yosemite with friends who joined work with me, we were in the same induction batch.. I just loved the place..

Not to forget, the number of trips to Chicago (I have actually lost count of it).

But alas, still New York is on the list, yay I finally made plans for it, first weekend of 2008... :)

Attended some great live concerts: Aerosmith, Kadri Gopalnath, Sonu Nigam (St.Louis), AR Rahman and Linkin Park (Chicago).

Wasted many a 10 dollars on watching those Hindi movies almost every other Friday.. but watching Sivaji made up for it, well almost.. :)

Learnt a few lessons on the guitar, learnt swimming, became more fitness conscious( more like since I now pay for it at the YMCA, I better make best use of it) read a whole lot of books (the St.louis county library is my favorite place around where I stay, its an amazing place, I can spend hours together and not realize how the time goes by until someone tell me its time to close the library), got addicted to watching movies and sitcoms (long live blockbuster)..

Staying away from home on your own has its own way of teaching you lessons, and what have I learnt, I can say with certainty that I have learnt a lifetime's worth :)

And now am looking forward to going to Chennai, spending time with my parents and sister(I miss her like crazy) and friends who I haven't gotten to meet in a long time and a friend's wedding too... will be there for two and half weeks and have already planned something for everyday and a little tad disappointed that I will not be able to watch Dasavatharam(they have postponed the release now) and plays from the chennai theatre scene( looks like the chennai theatre scene is off the whole of November :( ) and before St.Louis gets to hear the last of me, I will be right back :)

A Namesake's Name..

What's in a name?

A whole lot, me thinks. If you have lived all the years of your existence with a long name (13 letters for a first name and 10 letters for a last name, a total of 23 letters (English has a total of 26 letters, if not for a few repetitive alphabets, my name would be a running in close for having all the alphabets of this language) and to top it all, I have to answer questions like why do you have two first names and no middle names. Wonder what my parents were thinking when they decided to call me "Lakshmi Prabha", that nobody ever calls me by whole name and that people find convenient ways of calling me, the easiest being LP, officially Prabha and a few friends Lakshmi and Vinu at home and it’s a great feeling when you know of your ability to respond to all of these names under different circumstances. Well to go back to how I got my name in the first place, Lakshmi is from my grandmother and Prabha is kind of a family name for all cousins (girls) (thankfully better sense prevailed and my sister was spared of this torture which my cousins and me were subjected to). That's the origin of my name and that I still cannot understand why would anybody want to give their daughter my name, maybe my Parent's should know, I sure have brought it up on many occasions just in a lighter vein and well sometimes seriously too, well then again, I have to live with it now :). Just when you think all is cool and you have forgotten about it, there are certain things which will have to keep reminding you of what you want to forget...

* You read a forward which says you are from South India if your name will be that of a Goddess (Sure my name is of the Goddess of Wealth and well I am her namesake but I don't see how that has helped me until now, If the access to riches was as easy as naming your daughter after the goddess of wealth, won't everybody be naming their daughter Lakshmi.. well maybe they were being optimistic)

* A friend of mine says that before she met me, she had just heard of my name thru some common friends and she had painted a mental picture of what kind of person I would be like - a very quiet, traditional, well oiled hair (not that I have anything against these kind of girls) and we shared some laughs over it and after that I just asked her if she hasn't heard of a certain someone who goes by the name "Padma Parvathy Lakshmi" (she was Lady Rushdie until a while ago)

* It takes me a whole 5 minutes to get my name across spelling it out the American way.. A for apple.. yada yada to even get a haircut appointment and at the end of it, the lady at the salon can't find my name on the database.. sigh..

Well our life is what we make it out to be and that we are what we are because the things we do and the person that you grow up to be and what you want to really be and all that will be remembered by that one name that you were baptized with. Whatever is your name, try to live it up and just as long as it brings a smile on someone's face, you are OK :), the things I have to keep reminding myself to feel good about my name, I really try hard don’t I..

(On the contrary, in the corporate world, the name of your company, the name of your product speaks volumes for itself, we are talking about brand names here. I was reading about this company called Lexicon Branding which comes up with names for Product's for Companies, they are the people who coined Pentium for Intel and Blackberry. Quite interesting to know that so much of thought process goes into naming a product. That We now use the word 'Google' instead of 'search' and 'Xerox' instead of 'making copies' is evident enough)

Working your way...

As misleading as the subject line could get, I am not going to delve into matters that are best left for a "typical software engineer" after work discussion and that I don't really fancy such a get together is a different thing altogether, I'd rather prefer to hang out with people who do see work and after-work as two independent entities at least for most part of it. I would agree that its hard sometimes to get your mind off "that un-crackable bug that is creating havoc" or "the manager who thinks you are doing a great job (what a cliché) but still rate you lower than everybody else" Well the fact is most of your time that you are awake is spent at work and its hard not to talk about it, but well then there is more to life than that. I digressed there a bit. Ok I got started on something that I originally did not intend to.

Two statements:

Over a dinner conversation, a colleague of mine : " Things are really cool these days, my manager listens to everything I say because he needs my help in getting everything done. But the sad part is that, you don't get to learn anything from him"

Over a phone conversation, a friend from college : " My brain cells are really dead, I think I need to be amongst people who are good at what they do, I don't seem to be learning anything at work, people around me don't challenge me enough, there is no drive to perform "

On a very retrospective note, how important is it for everybody to be surrounded by people who are better or at least as good as you on some occasions, to get your feet back on the ground, to learn something, to get the drive to perform better, so set higher levels of aspiration, to be inspired. You may have been a topper in school/college, best performer at work, but you are the best amongst the people you have been compared with, but only when you are pitched against people who are leagues ahead of you, you realize that there is nobody who can "best" at what they do, there is always someone out there somewhere who can do things "better" than you, if that’s enough reason for an inspiration to look for things to always improve on..

How Can I leave Garfield out of this "This is it. I've reached the pinnacle of laziness... How depressing. There's no place to go after you've reached the top"..

For now am working my way trying to get over my laziness , working quite well so far, I should say..

Talk about Performance Pressure..

:)

Over the years..

The kind of people who influence you the most, are the friends that you grow up with, you end up influencing each other. Those school and college friendships are special. These are the friends who have grown with you, thru all your insecurities, sharing most of them. The friends that you make as you grow old, as nice as they can get, just aren't the same, you just don't take the same kind of liberties. It’s more of a mature friendship and not the kind of friendship that matures over a period of time.

You have seen each other thru the best and the worst, thru winning over their first crush to many heartbreaks
You scramble thru those examinations exchanging notes and giving few tips,
You see each other thru times of seeking jobs thru to their first jobs
You talk absolute nonsense thru 3 hours yet end up having a great time
You can say anything on your mind and still get away with it
You sure would have had your share of misunderstanding but then you learn to grow over it
You can be mad, insane and weird and they are still your friends

You don't have to be nice to them always, to be their friend
You did not have the money to throw around, yes shakes and creams was your favorite hang out
You fight over food, chocolates especially (me)
You are so different from each other
You get irritated and offended with them over small things, but
You end up understanding each other better and like the person for what they are
You share so many nostalgic memories with them..

Time goes by,
You may not stay in the same city and most often end up in different time zones
You may not be able to call each other as often as you would have liked to, but they will still be your 3 A.M friends, that they don't answer your call at 9 P.M itself, is a different thing :)
You may not get to meet for a long time, but when you do
You pick up the thread from where you left and end up having a crazy time :)

To all the amazing people I know,
I really do feel blessed!

Once in a while I suffer from this case of an emotional flu, mostly when am pondering over, what I can do next and when my options are to sleep(trying desperately not to fall for it) or to finish off the book that I am reading(when the book you are reading is Life of PI, I would rather read it when am not that tired, this book has already got me thinking and wonder how I did not get to read this before) and of course I ended up writing this.

The genuis that Calvin is..

Calvin : Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads.

Hobbes: then what are you?

Calvin: I pragmatically turn my whims into principles.

LOL :)

The man, the magic, the game called Tennis - Go Federer!

This man seems to be breaking records of all sorts, if not creating some. As a commentator pointed out that we are going to sound like a broken record if we talk about the records this man is going to break or create. That's Roger Federer for you, the man, many say is the greatest player this game has ever seen and he proved that yet again in the US open -It's four in a row for him, the first man to achieve this feat in the open era.

But Djokovic is the man to watch out for, all of 20 years, it wasn't easy for Federer, Five times close to winning the first two sets, he was out classed by Federer, clearly the results do not reflect what this man deserved. I am sure everybody's heart went out to him. Well he is just one of the very few who have the history of defeating Federer in the recent past, if this match and the past is anything to go by, this man is someone to watch out for, for he has great fitness levels and is playing amazing tennis too.. :) ( Don’t miss out on the imitation of Sherapova and Nadal by Djokovic, this man has a great sense of humour too.. Be sure to check this out on you tube )

Federer definitely was not at this best in the US open final, and this match was no way close to the edge-of-the-seat 5-setter marathon thriller in the Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal earlier this year, yet Djokovic was the one who dominated the first two sets, being a shot away from winning a set 5 times, the final result was a lot different, it was Federer, who was not at his classy best but yet managing to emerge a winner. It is for this reason, that he is touted as the best. A 25,000 odd crowd, a legacy to live up to, a few records at stake, and being down but yet he does it yet again, not once but twice in the first two sets and there he is the undisputed king of modern day Tennis. ** Greatness ** Can anybody be better than the best, the answer is NO, but as everybody agrees that the gaps are closing in, Nadal and Djokovic are people to watch out for. We got to wait and watch.. but for now it's still Federer's ERA.. Rafa and Djokovic your time will come.. 2008 already promises to be exciting :)

Randomly Random..

Why do people always think a "fun" weekend is only when you have some plans for an outing or a party or something of sorts, why can't a weekend where you are just home tucked under the comfort of your comforter, watching movies, sitcoms, reading books and you have absolutely no plans be fun.. I exactly "plan" to do that this weekend, and am more than sure its going to be a rocking weekend.. Ah there just got an invite for a get together on Saturday :)

Why can't I have a phone conversation that lasts more than 10 minutes these days?? Ponder Ponder..
(Rewind: I used to be a total phone person back in college and a little after that, to get with the same people all thru the day and you are back home and you still find something to talk about over the phone and yet again meet the next day and still you have something to talk about.. )

Why do people who have gone back to Chennai after a long time of staying outside of it, find that there is something amiss , that the charm of the city that they left behind is not there anymore. Has something changed about my most favorite city, (I hope not) am waiting to find out, 60 days to go..

Edit: I just heard from the friend who is on a vacation in Chennai, that they have implemented gps in the city buses and the digital board in the bus stands which says ' 21H arrives in 4 mins', its still in the pilot stage but will be implemented thro the city, now ain't that kewl :)

Did you know that the movie Exorcist was inspired by the St.Louis Exorcism. Yes I live in one of the most haunted cities in the US of A

India pulled off a remarkable victory against England, chasing a target - once impossible over 300 runs. will another thriller unfold at the Lord's.. can't wait to find out..

What's at stake for Federer in the US open- A fourth consecutive US open title (will he be the first to achieve it?) , a 12th grand slam title (only Pete Sampras is ahead of him) and some great tennis matches for his fans world over to cheer about, we have already witnessed two of them :), the higher the stakes, the better he plays. I think if you are even remotely interested in watching tennis or in the game, you should watch this man play, after all, he isn't dubbed as one of the greatest players this game has ever seen for no reason.. I missed out on watching him play at the US open this time around but if am lucky, I will get to watch him next year :)

The LP (Linkin Park) concert totally rocked (literally), a crowd of over 25000, electrifying music - it was my first hard core rock concert experience (if I don't count the Aerosmith concert in St.Louis which I think sucked, they absolutely had no stage presence), I thoroughly enjoyed myself and will definitely go down as an experience of a lifetime :)

If I have to talk about live performances and experiences, memorable ones at that,this one would certainly top the list and something I that would recommend to everyone, the cirque du soleil shows, I happened to watch one of their shows called 'KA' in Vegas (tickets are priced a little on the higher side but hell who cares, the experience is priceless), the acrobatics, the stage set up -everything extravagant and mind boggling to say the least, I have never seen anything more magnificient on a stage.I always happen to have so much fun in Vegas, there is something for everyone there, the grandeur, the magnificent buildings, it sure is an architectural delight and of course the fun gambling as long as you know the limits, I have only lost money but I stopped when I did reach the limits I had set. Let me correct myself, I was told that in Vegas, you don't say you lost the money, you say you spent the money :)

I want to see a Broadway show, I still haven't been to New York :(

That was as random as I could get.. Yippee it's a Friday!

I am not always right, but am never wrong..

This is it. I've reached the pinnacle of laziness... How depressing. There's no place to go after you've reached the top.
Eat, sleep, be lazy, derive pleasure out of doing nothing. That's Garfield for you..

I think I was born to be like him. This world has changed me in many ways, I work for a living and like challenges, I have multitude of interests but all said and done, I like being lazy and love sleeping. No matter how many hours I sleep, I simply can't wake up in the mornings I have to force myself every single day to wake up. On a weekend , "Oh no! I overslept ! I'm late ! For my nap". I realized its easier to have an inspiration who is so already like you, so that you don't have to work towards anything.. yes Garfield is my inspiration..

His Philosophy is my belief.

• Odie, let's talk effort versus return here. You know, you can still lead a pointless life without all that running around.
• If you want to appear smarter, hang around someone stupider.
• If you are patient...and wait long enough...Nothing will happen !
• I'm not messy. I'm organizationally challenged !
• Good times are ahead ! Or behind. Because they sure aren't here.
• Anybody can exercise... But this kind of lethargy takes real discipline.
• Avoid fruits and nuts: after all, you are what you eat.
• Eat every meal as though it were your last
• All I do is eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. There must be more to a cat's life than that. But I hope not.
• You can bet it wasn't an exercise freak who invented power steering.
• You know it's Monday when you wake up, and it's Tuesday
• Diet is die with a 't.
• I'll rise, but I won't shine.
• I look back on my life with regrets. All those wasted years. All that time spent awake

Oh, I Love this cat, its zimply purr-fect !!

Of Garbage trucks and 200 $$$$...

Just another normal day. 8 A.M we set out to work.I-55. Same way. Same lane. Music wasn't playing in the car, courtesy Miss A who was sitting in the passenger seat taking her offshore call. I was driving, M was sitting right behind me.

I hate driving in the mornings as I am usually grumpy and half asleep, but I still fight my mood and sleep and drive sometimes(mostly Miss A likes to drive in the mornings), its been a routine for more than a year now.. Gossip, insane conversations (courtesy M and me, Miss A tries to maintain sanity but in vain.. we tried to change her but that did not work either), Complaining (whats life if we have nothing to complain about), or sometimes just plain silent, this is how we travel to work everyday. Most days we do have floating members in the car. People who want to get to work earlier than their usual time or people who cudnt wake up in time to go in their regular car pool, new people who come in in.. when most of you who work in the same company stay in the same apartment complex invariably everyone would have travelled with everybody else at some point of time.

We were two exits close to work, I was driving, Miss A was still talking, M reacts to the sound of a shattering glass, well the only thing I knew at that point was that there was a really huge garbage truck to our right, and following instructions to move to the shoulder, I overtook the garbage track and moved over to the shoulder. I later found out that something flew from the garbage truck and hit the window pane on the rear right hand side, and the window pane cracked and shattered. There was no sign of anything else except for a polythene bag with a paper inside the car which flew into the car. There goes the garbage truck well past us.. and 200$ for a new window pane .. Thankfully there was nobody sitting on that side of the car today considering that there are usually more than 3 of us in the car. We drove back home( thank god for it wasn't raining nor was it winter, we only had to survive the wind blowing hard into our ears), gave our car for service, M drove her car and we were back to work to start what was another usual day at work, just an hour late than usual though... !!