• Tea time in England

    17Mar
    Categories: Thoughts Comments: 2

    It was a really interesting day today. Sitting in a video conference with our partners in crime in England, I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, I love their bloody accents ( my own rendition introduced). But in addition to that, I love how much they love their traditions. We were all sitting through a meeting, when suddenly this man with a tray comes into the room for them. All of us in the room in Canada stopped and starred, while, the British man, with a kettle and china cups, laid down the tray in front of the people and left. Even while our mouths fell open, the people in the group started pouring tea from the dainty kettle into their dainty cups and slurping away at their tea (quietly, obviously).

    It was so cute to me that they were so ingrained into their high noon tea time tradition, that even during office hours, it is strictly regulated. But I guess I should mention that they did not have their cucumber sandwiches with the sides cut out. For us Canadians, we have hastily slurped coffee that burns the roof of your mouth, while you are eating a doughnut or bagel through the side of your mouth. Well, that happens sometimes. Often time, we have little time for food, but I am just being a little melodramatic, like I like to be.

    Just to switch around the topic a bit, I was chatting with a person yesterday ( names shall not be mentioned at all), and he was lamenting about the fact that he did not have any time to travel. He was 27 years old and he hadn’t travelled much at all in his life. I really was saddened by that fact, that this person who is so young, has no family or obligations yet, is already so escounced into the fabric of full-time work, deferred-life plan, that he hasn’t been able to enjoy himself, and will probably not enjoy the benefits of travel until he retires. That seems a bit extreme to me.

    I dont know how the deferred life plan came about, but it is the worst plan that I have ever come across. It teaches people that it is the only way to live and I have had people argue with me, that it is impossible for them to do mini-retirements throughout their life, because of all the expenses that they have at the moment right now. It is as easy to take those expenses off for a few months, as it was for you to put them on. And you only have to believe it is possible for it to be possible. If you believe it is impossible, it will be impossible.

    By the way, my mum makes the best salad, its so yummy. It has the following in it, broccoli, hummus as dressing, nuts, salami cubes, apple cubes, grapes, tuna, and cheese cubes. Yum! And so filling and healthy.

  • I should be a bitch, but I didn’t get that memo

    16Mar
    Categories: Thoughts Comments: 0

    I was told yesterday by a close friend, that looking at all of my multi-talents; my beauty and my smarts, and everything else nice, I should be a mega-bitch. But I didn’t realize that if you are talented, you are required to be a bitch at the same time. So I am not a bitch. I try to be nice. I like it when people are nice to me, and I like it when I am nice to people. I like it when people like me, and I like people who like me.

    There is this dream that I get occasionally when the weather gets especially snowy, where I dream of trees, long, wavy, green trees, with long leaves, that are just beautiful to me. I dream about a place which is really green and leafy, so green that it hurts your mind to see so much beauty. I was in a place such as this a few days ago, it is called Hawaii. It is beautiful as beautiful as I dreamed it would be.

    I have a bucket list of sorts, I have a list of all the places that I want to see, and on that list are all the places in the world, except those places that I have already been to. I dont want to go to the same place twice, until I have gone through all of them once, and then I can go through them again. In this bucket list, is my dream to open my own business as well. Which is on hold, until I can figure out what kind of business I should open.

    I fear that I am the kind of person who wants to open a business, but falters with indecision due to overload of information, or too much information seeking. I am the person who has done so much research on a subject, that they essentially are subject-matter experts, which causes them to conclude, that its a bad idea to do whatever they were researching. Too much information is usually not a good thing. But in business, it is especially a bad thing, if you are going to wait until you have all the information before beginning a business, you are going to be waiting a long time.

    I think about Social Media PR as something that would be interesting to dip my feet in, but that would be in the far future, when I have learnt enough about my current business. Who knows what the future holds for me, but I am excited all the same to see it through?

    Surrounded by great friends and family, I am a success already in my mind, Success to me is happiness. If you are not happy, you are not a success. Maybe that is a really shallow definition of things, but still there it is. That is what I believe.

    One thing I have noticed about myself, that I have had other girls notice as well, is that they are incessantly attached to the relationship and they give their all to it, thinking nothing about the other people who existed in their lives before the inauguration of the relationship. That is something that I guess you learn through time, but I have had this comment from girls who are in their late twenties, or early thirties. Is it something that comes with 20-30 years of dating, or does it never come to the estrogen-filled female? This is something I want to talk about more, and think about more.

    By the way, I had a comment on my blog on Guys not berating themselves after a breakup from a guy who had been there. He informed me that he had lost 50 pounds after a girl broke up with him, to prove to the world, that he was still attractive. I guess, the self esteem downfall after a breakup affects the best of us. And the worst of us.

    Ciao!

  • Nouveau rich

    16Mar
    Categories: Randomness Comments: 0

    I am in Hawaii, reading the 4 hour work week book, and I just realized this is exactly what I have been asking myself, the ultimate question. Why am I doing this? I would be sitting in front of the TV, watching some garbage show, trying to pass the time, to get through the next couple of hours, so I could go to sleep, at a decent time, and not seem to eager to fall asleep. And then, I would wonder, what am I doing? Why would I work three billion hours, so that I can retire for five years, and then die.

    Dont get me wrong, I love my job. It is the funnest thing, but I am wondering if I am letting life pass me by, while things are happening. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. I mean this is the answer, that i have been looking for. I know everything happens for a reason, and I know this trip to Hawaii was supposed to happen at this time, so that I would meet Stan and Lauren, two of the nicest people I have ever met, and have them recommend this book to me, that opened my eyes to something so different and radical, its just crazy. I have been thinking about it, and wanting to do it, but it just seemed too different to me. There are so many excuses. I am going to miss my family. I am not going to make any friends. I am not going to be able to pay my bills. I am going to be bored sitting at home. Etc. I mean, I could come up with a myriad of excuses if you want me to.

    All I know is that this is the answer I have been looking for, the mini-retirements, the 6 months off to go live in a different location. I have ideas of places where I want to live, why not? I am so going to sell  my iloft as soon as I can, and then,  use that money to pay off my loans, and then, I can save up to go on a 6 month holiday, with no obligations. I have already gotten over things, I dont need things, I want experiences. I want life. I want to live life. And if my partner isn’t into it, then its not meant to be. I am sure of that. Thats why, its important that my partner know thats my life goal.

    Taking a bartender course would be next goal. I can’t believe it. I am going to working holiday in Australia, work as a bartender. Its great. I can’t believe I was doubting myself. Get the book 4 hour workweek and read it, and start planning. Its life and buying a house is the middle class mentality, not the new rich mentality. Think smart, think minimalist. Boom things!

    Thank you God, for giving me the idea and letting me see people who are actually living life the way everyone should be. I know I want to live in Amsterdam, London, Hawaii, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong, Japan, etc. I mean, every 2 years, if i take a 6 month vacation and go somewhere and live there. I would accomplish what I want to do. I am so excited. I am literally hoping crazy. Touchwood!!!

  • Packing for a trip

    04Mar
    Categories: Thoughts Comments: 0

    Packing can be hard. Especially for a girl like me, who has a lot of stuff, and she likes to take care of herself even on trips. Thus, when I went backpacking, it was an ordeal. Not being able to take everything on the face of this planet, was excruciatingly painful. I almost had tears in my eyes. :)

    But once I did, once I went backpacking for a month, wearing the same clothes over and over again, having just shampoo and body wash as the two bath accessories, being really limited in space, really taught me the value of space. I can now pack for a week’s vacation, with just check-on luggage and not feel deprived. I also don’t like taking too much stuff, because then there is a possibility of losing it. If you have only carry-on luggage, there is a very low possibility of losing anything.

    But it does create a problem in terms of the whole 100 ml bottles rules. Everything that is liquid or gel in your bags, has to be in 100 ml or less bottles. Finding everything, from toothpaste, to body cream, to face cream and sunscreen, in 100 ml or less bottles, is again really difficult. It is something that I went through and I didn’t want to go through again.

    The good thing about taking little stuff is that, you dont have a lot of choices. You dont spend precious minutes of your vacation, thinking about what you should wear. When you only have 5 choices, you wear what you can, and then, thats all. I would take 5 choices, because wearing one outfit twice is not a big crime. It would be welcomed. In fact, you might not be targeted by the pick-pocketers because they see you and they see a poor person wearing repeated clothing. How could this poor person have any money on them? Let me go after the lady with the Chanel purse, and shoes.

    Another advantage that I wanted to capture is that you are less likely to buy things, because you have no space on your checkon luggage. Where would you put it? Seriously, unless its tiny, like jewellery or lotion, there is absolutely no way you can carry a sculpture or a painting in your baggage. If you are willing to pay extra in baggage, more power to you, but for me, this removes any possibility that I would go shopping for more clothes, outside the country and bring it back, to my already overfilled closet.

    I have actually started putting my clothes in little piles on teh floor of my room, because my drawer chest is too full of clothes. There is no way, I could cram more clothes in there. Thus, my floor is always filled with little, neat piles of folded clothing, ready to be worn in an instance. At least, its easy for me to get ready in the morning, just pick something up from the pile on the floor, smell it to make sure it’s the pile that has been washed, and not dirty clothing that was dropped in haste to get to bed, last night, and off we go to the Office.

  • Relationship

    04Mar
    Categories: Thoughts Comments: 0

    Just my own thoughts on relationships. Totally random, but still there.

    Its amazing how the older you get, after a certain cut-off, everyone around you seems to be either getting married, or getting engaged, and the quicker ones are even getting pregnant. The profligation of marriage pics on my facebook has been alarming. I open my facebook every day and I see another bunch of marriage pics added for me to browse through, and feel a little bit more pressure from this indirect method of evolution, telling me, You gotta hurry up, you gotta get married, otherwise, no one’s going to be left.

    Its making me wonder if all that my parents say is actually true. That once you are 31 or 32, as a female, it is virtually impossible to find a good guy, cos all the 30 year old men, are looking for 25 year olds, which as a current 25 year old, I would be hard-pressed not to think about it. It also irks me when they say, that Marriage is like applying for a job in the current economy. You gotta start early, you gotta hit it hard, and eventually, after a few years (or months) of hard-work and committment, you shall get there.

    The funny thing is that until I was 25, I didn’t even feel anything. I could happily ignore all the drama around me about marriage. Is there something in the female genes that triggers something when she turns 25, or is it in the genes of everyone around her, that start releasing these marriage toxins?

    Notwithstanding being in a really high-pressured Indian culture ( which we will talk about later), I still feel the pressure from the outside world. I am potential meat that can be sold on the marriage market, I am ready to go. I have ripened to the exact right amount, and any more could completely ruin me, and no one would want me anymore.

    The indian culture which is essentially the biggest marriage market out there. There were 50,000 marriages in India on Valentine’s day, which really shows you how many people get married there. Being Indian, I knew that three things are important in my life and of major priority - higher education, good job and the right marriage.

    Every person has a certain status and they have to marry within their status. Every person also has a certain caste, and it would be nice to marry within that caste. Every person has a certain religion and it would be great to marry within that religion. Every person has a certain color… You get the point. There are so many rules on who to marry, that it sometimes boggles my mind.

    Just a side thought, in terms of breakups. Why do girls always instantly assume that its a slight against their beauty if a guy rejects them? But guys never do that. They always keep their confidence, they never think, oh, this must be reason, I am not handsome enough, my biceps aren’t big enough, my stomach is 6-pack enough, etc.

    While women compare themselves to others on the basis of their beauty, men compare themselves with each other on the basis of several interesting things, like money, success, the beauty or desirability of their partner and the size of their appendage.

    I think because men have so many things to compare themselves with each other on, it results in less competition, and less throat-cutting, back-biting between men ( unlike women). Usually you find guy-friends who are interested in different things, so that when it comes to success, every single one is successful in his own special way, one has so many girlfriends, one has so much money and the one more has an an amazing business, as an example.

    But women who only have one basis point for comparison, have to stoop to spreading rumors about each other, doing dirty, mean, down-right evil things, to put other females down, to lift themselves up.

    This is just a theory that I am spouting, that has been around for ages, I’m sure.

    Next I would love to chat some more about the caste system and the 3 goals of an Indian person.

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