Connecting The Dots
May 21 2009

Sometimes the dots connect and sometimes they don’t.   Sometimes you connect them and a nice picture emerges.  Sometimes you connect them and a mess shows up.  Some seemingly random dots are showing up in my life right now and I’m not sure if and how I should connect them or if there is any connection at all.  Here they are:

I recently received the new & improved purple peacock hat I mentioned that I wanted in my New Year’s Resolutions post that my good friend Julie Fergerson, VP of Emerging Technology at Debix, got me for my birthday.  The one she got me was too big for my small head so I sent it back and the designer, Sharmon Hardin, created me a new one that fits great and even has peacock feathers!  She was so friendly and easy to communicate with. Every hat someone buys from her she makes another for St. Jude’s.  I think I’m going to submit Sharmon and her hat business for inclusion in Seth Godin’s new book.  Now I have to wear it to lunch with my friend one day!

My daughter made me a beautiful bracelet for Mother’s Day that I wore to work yesterday and got many compliments on.  Of course, I was shoving it in people’s face to look at it so they were forced to say how pretty it was whether they liked it or not. 🙂   But it is quite lovely.  I’ve been noticing her personality starting to show more.  Sometimes when she says something, I’m taken aback at her sophistication and the signs that she’s growing up.  I smile at her confidence and beauty.  She’s starting to drop her baby words but I still tell her she needs to get her ‘swim soup’ when she’s going swimming.  She had so many cute words that will probably hang around in our family’s vocabulary forever.  I used to come up with words when I couldn’t say something properly and my mother still reminds me of those or says them in sentences when she’s talking to me.  I had words for elephant (my favorite animal), apple, sweet things, etc.

My son made me a wonderful card with a picture that he drew of himself on the front and he wrote “I love you mommy” in French inside the card.  I have it on my desk at work and several people have remarked how cute they thought it was.  The only word I remember that he used to say was ‘mimi’ for milk otherwise he seemed to pretty much learn a word and say it right.

Our roof was damaged in a recent hail storm and even with insurance coverage it will cost us $3 to $4K out of pocket.

My husband’s car was practically totaled by the hail storm with windows blown out and body damage that will also put us out of pocket some money.  The windows are fixed so he can drive it but he still has dents all over his car.  His car is jinxed because so many things have happened to it.

Interesting opportunities are presenting themselves for me and Babble Soft making me wonder how I should deal with them.

I’ve had a surge of creativity recently around writing song lyrics, singing, and writing in general but no consistent time and space to get it out.  It’s all bottled up and I feel sometimes like I’m literally going to explode.  I’ve never experienced this before, but it’s a form of torture (not water boarding).  I also don’t generally hang around people who get that or who I can share what I’ve been able to write, which makes me a little sad sometimes.  It helps that I work in weekly voice lessons over lunch.  We are working towards recording a few songs for demo purposes.  I tell my voice instructor that I consider our lessons therapy sessions!

I am tired from burning the candle at both ends as they say.  The whole Building A Web Business After Hours is taking it’s toll.  I’m home sick today just feeling worn out with a scratchy throat.  The upset tummy has disappeared for now.  I will hopefully be fine tomorrow.

The new school, The Magellan School, that my husband is founding is going really well and set to open this August 2009.  Many families have already signed up and donations are coming in.  The first years are always challenging so it’s going to be tight around here for a while.

There’s a bunch of other dots that I either can’t write about or I’ve forgotten but needless to say I am living in interesting times and it’s seems like it’s exactly where I’m meant to be to deal with what lies ahead…

How about your dots?

A Random Post About Some Stuff
Apr 16 2009

If Seinfeld can do a whole TV show about nothing, I figure I can do one blog post about nothing much or much of nothing.  Well it is about something but nothing that requires a whole lot of thinking like some of my recent posts.

I just got back from a really neat event here in Austin at a place called Austin Museum of Art – Laguna Gloria called the Art of Business.  Business people who paint or take great pictures showcased their work and the highest bidder at the end of the night would win the piece.  I left before the end of the event.  I went because one of my co-workers was exhibiting a painting.  I realized when I was half way home that I should have taken a picture to put in this blog post.  I’ve asked her to write a guest post for me and she’s going to work on it next week.  It’s going to be on creativity and I can’t wait to see it!

I’ve started singing in my day job office more…to the delight of some people and to the dismay of others…mostly the interns because I made up a “Lame Intern” song when they didn’t show up to one of our happy hours.  It was to the tune of Nobody by Sylvia (link to YouTube video) and most of the interns are too young to have ever heard the song before.  It’s kind of early soft country.  I’m trying out a new voice teacher that was recommended by a friend I made at the Landmark Forum.  I got to know her better during the seminar series.  She’s probably as close to a professional singer I’ll come to know since she has sung at Austin legendary places like Antone’s.  It’s a very different style of voice learning than I’ve ever experienced before and so far it seems to be having an impact on my voice and even my confidence level.  It’s called Speech Level Singing and apparently people like Pavaroti and Barbara Streisand are coached that way.

I’ve been procrastinating heavily on updating the books for Babble Soft.  I’m about 3 months behind.   I did get our taxes done with the help of a tax accountant and we owed money this year for a variety of reasons.

I also have two more fortune cookie fortunes and they are:

A visit to a strange place will bring you renewed perspective. That’s good because I’m going to a strange place in June.

Hear with your ears but listen with your heart.  All I know is that heart listening can be a weird mixture of joy and pain.

OK, that’s enough of the random stuff for a blog filler post.

It’s Leap Day! It’s Leap Day!
Feb 29 2008

Given that I’ve been busy fundraising (i.e., pulling my hair out!) and haven’t had much time to come up with any interesting new blog posts, I thought I’d do a post on Leap Day.  February 29 only comes around every 4 years so here’s an off the cuff poem about Leap Day to brighten your day, make you smile, or at least make you scrunch your forehead…

Leap Day, Leap Day where did you come from?
Leap Day, Leap Day where is your home?
You arrive every 4 years and soon you are gone.
You remind some of us of lizards or frogs
And others of leaping antelopes, hogs or dogs
But some of us wonder why the heck don’t we have the day off!
                                 Aruni Gunasegaram, February 29, 2008 11:45 a.m. CST

Happy Leap Day everyone!  May the extra day bring you one special day closer to achieving your 2008 goals. 🙂

What Happens To All Of The Crayons?
Feb 3 2008

Being the busy family that we are, we eat out now and again.  When we go to kid-friendly restaurants they generally give us papers to color on and crayons.  The paper ranges from a single sheet with fish or puppy dogs to elaborate booklets with tic-tac-toe games to word puzzles to fancier fish or puppy dogs.  I assume they recycle the paper, but what do they do with the crayons?  In 99% of the cases, they are brand new and are barely used when we leave them on the table (because we already have a million at home).  I hope they are given to some kids or schools who could use them.

Random Stuff and Bobby Jindal
Oct 22 2007

What a day!  It started out with a potty training disaster and an overflowing toilet and ended (well not quite ended yet) with me playing Power Rangers with my son before putting him to bed.  In between, there was a plumber, a photographer, many business related calls/emails/documents, a trip to Jiffy Lube for an overdue oil change, a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond for an overpriced plunger, telling my 5 year old son repeatedly that he cannot play on a football team right now, dinner, and a few scenes of the Jungle Book.  Phew!

In the middle of my interesting day, history was made and that was the election of Piyush “Bobby” Jindal as the governor of Louisiana.  Now normally someone being elected as the governor of any state is news but NOT history making news.  Bobby is the first Indian American to be elected Governor of a US state.  Why is this interesting to me?  Well because I am South Asian.  I remember when I was a teenager in West Texas I would joke with my friends about the fact that since I was born in another country, I could never be the president of the United States.  Back then, the fact that I was a woman didn’t enter into my analysis of whether or not I could be President some day.  The only loophole we found was that I could become the Speaker of the House and if something (God forbid) happened to the President and Vice President, I could for a few seconds actually be President until they realized I was a naturalized US citizen and not a native born one.

As I’m sure you can tell, I did not end up pursuing a political career (thank goodness!).  I am pretty sure that the political world would have driven me nuts!  

If you’d like to read about what other South Asians are saying about Bobby winning the election, look no further than Sepia Mutiny.  Sepia Mutiny is an irreverent blog for South Asians about South Asian stuff.  I happened upon it a few months ago and have been fascinated by the dialogue that goes on there.  The October 21, 2007 post on Bobby Jindal by Anna already has close to 500 comments!  Many of their posts draw hundreds of comments.

Personally, I do not have the same political leanings as Bobby.  He is a very strict conservative, and I am moderate in my political philosophy.  However, I have to say a hearty ‘congrats’ to him for making history.  Plus if he accomplishes what he says he wants to which is to get rid of corruption in Louisiana politics and bring in more aid for Katrina victims then more power to him! He along with people like Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, and all the high-tech entrepreneurs of South Asian descent have made it a bit easier for the rest of us brown immigrants to contribute to the glorious US of A. 🙂

OK, now I’m going to go watch Heroes before ending my interesting day.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring…

A Smoking Fireman!?!
Oct 18 2007

I wasn’t planning to do a post today, but I couldn’t help myself after seeing what I saw today.  After I picked up the kids from school, I took them to a nearby fire station because our son had been asking me to take him there for the last week or so.  So the three of us went to the fire station, got out of the car, and walked toward the fire truck that was parked inside the station.  As we approached, I saw a person (just their legs and feet) sitting on a chair at the opening of the station door and a few wisps of smoke coming from the area that I assumed would have been his/her face.  As he became visible, I noticed that he quickly put out a cigarette and attempted to discreetly slip an unused one inside the Larry McMurtry book he was reading.

I think I was visibly taken aback and half expected my son to say something like “Look Mom, he’s smoking!  That’s bad for you”  as he has done on a few embarrassing occasions before.  After the fireman began opening the fire truck doors so the kids could crawl inside, I got over my initial shock and wondered to myself “Are firemen or women allowed to smoke on the job? Especially given that many fires are started by lit cigarettes?”  I then thought “Well if a fire broke out in the station, they would be well-equipped to put it out!” 🙂

Has anyone else seen such a thing as a fireman smoking?  Doesn’t that seem like an oxymoron or some other such ironic thing?