House Cleaning

I cleaned up my facebook finally!
from a 1000 to 600 something...

Why did I have to "unfriend" so many?

There are people who I always reach out to but never reply, or there are people who are not that close to me, I haven't seen them in years, acquaintances etc. I didn't get rid of them entirely, they are all transferred to a different more professional profile (kinda working on somethings right now, and really need to go into myself, and share less, its a very personal thing). Really just sorting and finding who my true friends are, my friends who hang out with me, who are excited to be with me... There is such a difference, and I am here open to friendship, its all up to the other person.

What makes the other person a good friend?
1- honesty
2- communication
3- nurturing the friendship / making it grow
4- being truthful when feeling flaky about showing up, communication
5- being there when times are bad
6- being there when times are good
7- give and take, take and give
8- being genuine
9- humble
10- loyalty
....

There are so many things that make a good friend, and some people have said I am a difficult to be friends with cause of the high standards. Well I am an extremely empathetic (an empath), I am sensitive, so I need to surround myself with the best. To protect myself, my heart, and its hard to keep giving, I am not martyr.

People move on in life, and grow, make their own friends. It is understandable that some would not be able to or wish to stay in contact. I see no why they should linger on my personal page. I'm not in their lives, they aren't in my life. I think my sis did a sorting of a similar sort recently, and I have friends who have done the same. Although I say this, I often end up in one-way friendships, I let people do that to me, but I can't anymore.

I need to surround myself with people who are excited to be with me! Who want to hang out with me, who aren't using me, or I am just another picture on their facebook wall. I will not be that person anymore... I will not reach out and not get a reply for vast amounts of time...

I will not tolerate arrogance. Why is it that when some of my friends have received PhDs they began acting haughty, or in laymen's terms - they became total jerks. Isn't education supposed to better people? Why am I suddenly lesser, and not deserving of their respect? My father (an Indian man) always told me PhDs are always respected, and most respected. Do they always give respect though? You get respect if you give respect, not if you studied something for longer than another person. So you have some letters in front of your name, so you have another paper, so you spent more money to educate yourself, so you may earn more... so what? In the end "Winter IS Coming". In the end we are all but carbon molecules...

(that sure was a little rant).

I will be mindful to not become a jerk when I get more papers saying that I know "stuff", in the future. It is tough to be mindful, and it is always important to apologize to friends when you realize you have hurt them. I love the healthy communication, respect and love I have with some of my friends. Yes it's almost like an relationship. In fact it is. Maybe that's why people think being my friend is so demanding... what good is a friend who is not there for you when times are down, who won't go to watch movies with you, who lies to your face, who never stays in touch, who doesn't respect you or your feelings?

Yeah... surround yourself with Good people, Good friends... not Cool, but Good, and they will automatically be cool, cause you are cool. When you have a good friend, it won't even seem like so much work, because it will be so natural.

Breathe

biking with climbing friends.. ok climbing family!

fun time with friends!... family...

Ode to My Father

Me on the, ground, and my sister on my dad's shoulders. Circa 1986, Whippany, New Jersey

His smell, is my strongest memory of him from my childhood. It was a distinct smell, which kind of matched my smell... and I couldn't sleep at night without him cuddling me, and I would feel safe, his smell would tell me so. When he would go away I could not sleep, so my mother would put his under-shirt in my bed. I would clutch onto it, and feel safe smell him there.

He traveled alot, to different parts of the world, and I would miss him, but he always brought back presents for my sister and I. He was and is an expert at 6 year old's shaky tooth extraction. He removed many of my sister's teeth. She decided to be his shadow for some reason, and when we went on family vacations she liked being the "model" and would pose for all the pictures he took. I sometimes would get jealous of their bond, especially since she was his "shadow". She followed him around everywhere. She wanted to be just like him, so they would wake up at 5 am and go to the market, go jogging etc. Looking back it was cute that she was his shadow.


He would take us to the sports fields in various universities (Anna University - Madras, IIT-Madras, Elliot's Beach), and we would play basketball, football (soccer), jog, run, play with our Irish Setter dog - Butch, and enjoy every evening like this. Sometimes when we would get back from someone's house, or a dinner out, he would ask us "who wants to go for a drive at the beach?" and we would all say yes! We would just drive from Kotturpuram, down to Besant Nagar, and drive down the short Elliot's Beach drive. It was nice to just feel the cool ocean air. When we later moved to Besant Nagar, he my sister, and the dog, would all wake up to go see the sunrise on a morning walk. I missed out on these morning walks.

Everything I missed out on, I made up for recently. In 2001 my father came and dropped me off at college. That was the first time I saw him cry; he helped settle me down in my dorm and then he had to leave campus and go to Champagne-Urbana, Illinois, the "international-student orientation", which included parents was over. Our journey together from Chennai to New York, to Chicago, to Calvin College, had helped him slowly learn about me, and me about him. We bonded. I taught him how to use a computer, set up his email, and how to send emails, in the small computer lab in campus. This small act would lead him to learn more on his own, and be able to join this new world of entrepreneurs. He just learnt twitter, but he knows facebook is for social stuff, he's on linkedin, and totally dominates in email sending! He types with chopstick fingers (2 fingers on each hand), but oh what mighty speed!

Once, I was diagnosed with ADHD, (second year of college). My father had not heard of such a thing... "ADHD? What?! You will not take any medication for that. We will combat ADHD with natural solutions, meditation, yoga, gingko biloba, etc." So we began curbing the ADHD, and learning not to go on crazy spending sprees. He taught me how to save, just $5 a week, and slowly increasing it to $20 a week, etc. He also taught me how to take care of my car, work ethics, the good habit of waking up early, how to write good emails... Now I get to work with him, and learn so much. I got to travel the world with him and saw how he can communicate with anyone, how he is energetic even in the face of over-traveling, jet-lag, and being utterly over worked, Superman ain't got nothing... My dad is Superman, and my sis and I might be his kryptonite.

Recently, my father and I were listening to Mahabharata on audio book together, we share great time discussing the wisdom, applying it to our daily lives, and learning new things about ourselves from it. We enjoy lunches watching the news, the stock market and what not, discussing politics, economy and world affairs. We work together as a team in making lunch happen. He always surprises me with jokes, sometimes unintentional, sometimes corny, sometimes hilarious! You may have seen some of my blogs that talk about him!

Babi: We call him Babi, because as a child I couldn't say Baba. It just became Babi. My little sister just followed suit when she had to begin calling him by a name.

Other Nicknames:
We were once playing a game, my sister and I, and we were pretending we were camping in a forest far away. We were hiding from the bad guys at this time, and the leader of the bad guys was the "dirty filthy man". So we were imagining and pretending we were hiding behind a bush, however we were ambushed from the other direction. So we stood up and screamed, turning around pointing the other way "The dirty filthy man!!! Run!!!" For some reason my father was standing exactly where we were facing and pointing, in the distance, so he couldn't hear us. However, this changed things in our game, and we realized he was the bad guy and must run away from him all day. He didn't understand what was going on but when we had dinner together that night, we were still playing that game, and we were thought in our minds, 'the dirty filthy man has now captured us, and forcing us to eat radishes.' It was a random memory, but every now and then we remember it.

He is slightly bald, and actually I found out he has emotions about his lack of hair. He always says when we were born, he gave his hair to us. For that we are thankful. However at some point we joked and said his head was like a Tabla. That got shortened to Tabs and Tabby. We called him Tabby for a while, and ofcourse it morphed most unusually to La Tabs!
Once we were in school in Kolkata, and it was parent-teacher meeting day. Our half yearly results would be shared with only parents. So Babi volunteered to come. We were standing and waiting, and this was the teenage phase when we were both embarrassed by our parents. So we hung back although we saw our dad approaching. There were other random kids waiting for their ride home, or their parents. Some kid behind us commented "hey look at that guy he has a bald head. It's so round!" The two boys chuckled, and the other one commented "Yeah it's so flat and round, we can crack and fry an egg on his head!" They laughed at their joke, and my sis turned around and said "Areeeaaayyeee That's my father! How dare you!" They stopped laughing immediately.

My dad might be bald,
He might be pudgy,
He might have scolded me, lectured me, embarrassed me, annoyed me, frustrated me, angered me...
But in the end, he's my father.
And as much as I have been a delightful daughter, am sure,
I've also been quite the pain in the @$$,
I know he loves me so much.
He loves me so much,
He would move the continents of the earth for me (if he could, and knowing him, he would make it happen).
He's always been on my team,
Bailed me out of the worst situations,
Lifted us up when we were down,
Toughened us up when we were too soft,
Asked us to communicated when he couldn't understand us (women are different than boys).
He is an amazing man, he is my hero,
He is my superstar dad, and am so grateful that HE is my father, (but not limited to).
He is also my teacher, 
My boss, my friend, my supporter, 
My inspiration, my motivator.
He is superman, 
My lunch buddy, my yoga student, 
A colleague, partner in ideas, 
My educator, my benefactor, 
A lecturer.
He is my guru, and my sishya, 
He is also a contributor to many of my genes, 
He is an encourager of me following my dreams,
A simple guy from a village, and a world traveling entrepreneur, 
He is a leader, a soccer coach, 
My business school professor,  and the best every dirty filthy man ever!

 ... So grateful for my father. in my life.




Breathe

A Marathon and a Bachelorette Party!

Lucky to attend my first ever bachelorette party and Marathon in the same day. I was nervous at first, but it was so much fun, because we were a great bunch and kept it classy!

The Marathon was the River Bank Run in Grand Rapids, and the Bride to Be and her two sisters ran the 10K (6 Miles). They averaged a 7 minute mile and it was a breeze for these super fit girls, that they sang the "Eye of the tiger" the whole time, changing the words of course.

Then since we couldn't find a way out of the city, we watched the 26K which the girls were pumped to do next year. We watched for a long while, until we were pressed for time to get to the Bridal Shower, which was followed by a few hours of rest and then the Bachelorette party. Making it a busy, fun and love filled weekend. What awesome energy!

River Bank Run May 18th 2013, Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Bachelorette Party

 

A Shower for a Lovely Bride

Freshman year of college, I was kind of new to USA, especially since I had not lived here since I was 4 years old. I met a girl who lived across the hall from me, and by the second or third week of school we were already having adventures together. One usually expects room mates to grow close but she and I grew close thanks to an incident that led us to evacuate campus, and i was welcomed into her family and home. We eventually did become room mates, ate lots of pop corn, and went for mid night runs because we were pulling all-nighters, and charged up on caffeine. As the semester and our freshman year adventures came to a close, we transferred out, but always kept in touch, meeting every couple of years. I will never forget how she and her family touched my life, helped me out, took me winter coat shopping, helped me cope with Michigan-ness, and a bunch of other things!

I was so happy to be present for her Bridal Shower!

For the record ... it did rain.

The day was filled with showers from up above, love from friends and family, gifts, wishes of good luck, many hugs and blessings!


<3