Baby-in-line?

What do you do when you are waiting in line for something and you land up next to a baby and its mother? Babies are always adorable, especially the round, chubby ones. but you never know how close you should get to the baby. If you get too close and start playing with the baby the moms might get offended and think you’re a baby-napper or something. But if you don’t show an adequate amount of interest in the baby, the mum gives you this look that says, “what? You don’t think my baby isn’t cute enough for you?” Also, babies are very sensitive. Sometimes when you just look into their eyes they get all excited and start giggling happily but sometimes the same look can get a baby to start wailing in the middle of a super market. And when that happens, everyone around glares at you as if it was your mistake for not understanding ‘baby-language’. I remember this one time there was a baby sitting next to me in a movie theater – about 9 or 10 months maybe. Initially I didn’t even notice her – yes, she was that quiet! But during the second half of the movie she grabbed a tiny tuft of my hair and started patting my shoulder. I smiled at the mom politely and went back to the movie. But then she wrapped her tiny little hand around my little finger and that nearly brought me to tears. She was just so beautiful that for the rest of the movie I couldn’t help playing with her and tickling her. (Well the movie wasn’t that great anyway) after a while she was practically in my seat so I just lifted her and took her in my arms. That is when I saw the mum again. She was giving me that look I give people when they steal my popcorn. Feeling intimidated, I felt like shouting, ‘ hey lady! I’m not stealing your popcorn! I’m just taking your baby!’ Then this other time when I was waiting for my turn in the parlor, there was a baby again who kept drawing my attention. But this time I remembered the movie theater incident and decided to keep my distance. But unfortunately this time I think the mom wanted to show her little baby off to strangers and didn’t like the fact that I was barely showing attention. Now I really feel stuck when the baby-next-to-you situation comes up. Also when the babies are this young, it means that the mom just went through pregnancy and labor not very long ago and has probably not been getting enough sleep since then. So interpreting these glares from moms is even more trying than interpreting baby signs. So what do you do when there’s a baby in line? :O 

Looking out of the window: a little rain

She looked outside the window and noticed the moist ground, the slightly wet trees and that smell you get from the ground after a shower of rain. She smiled and wondered how things could change so fast. When she had left for lunch the ground was absolutely dry – as if it were a parched throat in need of water. And in thirty minutes it looked so beautiful. There had barely been a shower, for the amount of rain that had poured was not much. Yet, that little rain was enough to transform the ground. She realized that it was the same with life. Life needed a little shower to bloom. On the previous day, she had thrown party for a good friend and the day had gone splendidly. But when she reached home she was faced with a different atmosphere. She had to make a choice, and her career depended on it. But it was so difficult for her to choose that she couldn’t sleep well that night. As a result, she had been grumpy all morning. After snapping at a lot of people, she finally calmed down after lunch. That was when she realized that, though she still hadn’t come to a conclusion, all she needed was a little unexpected shower in her life. and her frown would be turned upside down again. Life was unexpected, and the lows would come along with the highs. All she had to do was wait.. She smiled and continued to look out of the window.

just my rambling thoughts

my cpt economics text says, while discussing if economics is an art or a science, that science teaches us to know and art teaches us to do. science is theoretical, whereas art is practical. i find that so ironical because most of us associate science with practicality and arts with theory. the main reason i am even doing my c.a. is because i am supposed to be good with practicals. and yet i find the above sentence to be true because c.a. being more of a science than an art is very theoretical. so what put it into people’s minds that science and commerce is more practical than art? is it because of the existence of maths in science and commerce? or is it that most people are not familiar with the subjects in arts and hence find it to be complete theory? physics, chemistry, biology and electronics we know to be theoretical. yes, they do have practical problems but that does not make a subject practical. it is the essence of the subject that counts. for example, statistics. we count that as a practical subject because we only have practical problems in p.u.c and we can score a full 100 in our exams. but the essence of statistics is to keep records, to measure, to compare, to analyse and to communicate required information for the prediction of future trends and making of decisions. isn’t that pure theory now? computation of the matter is mere clerical work. similarly – accountancy. accountancy being divided into book-keeping, accounting and accountancy, is part science and part art. book keeping is again of a clerical grade. accounting, though of a slightly higher level, still counts as computation of the matter. and accountancy by itself is purely analytical – which again is theory. business studies/commerce is also a theory subject and economics no doubt is theory. subjects like psychology, sociology and journalism on the other hand, (as far as i know) concentrate on studying the subject in college which might come across as theory, but out there, in the real world, these subjects serve more as practical. they deal more with doing than thinking. but yet, our disorganized minds associate science and commerce with practicality and arts with theory. that just goes to prove what Kabir (i think) said..

“jo dikhta hai, woh hai nahin. aur jo hai wo dikhta nahin.”

(what seems to be there, isn’t really there. and what is there, doesn’t seem to be.) – its a rough translation.

Happiness Engineers?

i have been on wordpress for over 6 months now and i have begun to understand the craziness of technology bit by bit. but the one thing i still haven’t understood is the term “happiness engineers”. it is a very cute term and i would love to be called one, because it makes your work sound so much more light and happy (:P) but i still dont know what that means. i have googled and checked all the wp forums like crazy but all i can find is people discussing if it is a professional enough name or if it is good enough or if they would like to be called happiness engineers. and then i tried finding these people but to no9 avail. ok well, i found a couple of them, i just didn’t think it was appropriate to ask them what they do on their private blogs. so can someone please tell me,

• what does happiness engineering mean?
• what do they do?
• what is their job description?
• who coined the term ‘happiness engineer’?
• how did the term come into existence?
• how many happiness engineers are there in wordpress?
• is this post unique to wordpress/automattic or do people in different companies have happiness engineers?

what am i about?

from the time i have had this blog, i kept changing something about it. like initially i kept changing the theme. then my headers and backgrounds changed. then i tried to experiment with my tagline. now i am obsessed with my ‘about’ page. i have been visiting a lot of blogs lately and their about columns are simple, yet interesting and informative. i am tired of the same old stuff that i keep writing about me. i want to change it. i want to make it better.
but when i think about it.. what about me is worth telling the world????
i have been wondering for the past one hour or so who i really am. what i stand for, what i want to do and the main question.
what is my focus in life???
forget that. i don’t even know what the focus of this blog is!
i was reading learn.wordpress (http://learn.wordpress.com/get-focused/) and daily post (http://dailypost.wordpress.com/).both tell us that every time we need inspiration we should remember why we started this blog in the first place. to be frank i started this blog because i had nothing better to do.
but yet, that chance entry into this world of blogging has changed me. but that does not help the fact that i still don’t know what my focus is.
there are so many things that i still have to learn at wordpress and so many things i want to share.
i want people to read my blog, to comment and criticize it and in this process, help me grow as a writer.
so what the hell am i about?? how do i write a better and more creative ‘about’ page which i will be satisfied with????

what do i write about today??

you might notice that i haven’t posted anything for a really long time. that is because all this while i have been wondering what i can write about. there has been so much going on in my life in the past few days that i have been thinking about a lot of things and going through different ideas. and each time i sat at my table to write something for this blog my mind went blank and i began to wonder ‘what do i write about today?’
everyday i went through the same question over and over again, each time coming up with a better idea than the last one. in a short while there were so many things that i could write about that i was getting confused with the whole lot. every time i sat down to write i was thinking about soo many things that it was difficult to focus and stick to one thing. the times when i did manage to begin writing i would just start rambling and after a sentence or two i would start talking about a totally different topic without even realizing it. in this time i went through different blogs and sought different ideas and opinions on what to write. i literally typed ‘ideas to write a blog on’, in google.

you might wonder as to what different ideas did this girl get that she got so confused? (even if your not wondering i want to tell you)

well firstly my closest girlfriends have been having a hard time this past week or so. all’s not well for them and i wanted to write about life and the various surprises that it can bring us and how we need to stay positive and believe in a happy ending all through out. but at the same time i was going through this period of self-realization and i also wanted to tell you guys about me. who i really am and how i have realized different truths about myself.

also because of certain events feminism is on my mind a lot and i wanted to write about women, and how far we have come in standing up for ourselves. i had also written a short umm.. paragraph called ‘a moment’ and a friend had suggested that i expand that and write about it in a more elaborate way. while doing that i began thinking about life in a very spiritual manner and also about this association called ‘art of living’ that i am a part of. its based on spirituality and i was thinking about it a lot and i wanted to write about that too..

another association that i am a part of is called ‘chinmaya mission’ which is a religious body and it got me thinking about religion and how different people see it.. this also made me think about the difference between god and religion and the importance of both in our lives..

again there is a third association which i love dearly and it is called the ‘gavel club’. it is a public speaking forum backed by the toastmasters and its given me a lot of precious gifts. i wanted to write about the importance of public speaking in our lives and how most people neglect it.

like you can see, i was thinking about different things all through this week (some which i haven’t mentioned here) and when i actually sat down to write about it i couldnt choose. so i am still battling with the question ‘what should i write about today?’ and i hope i find an answer soon enough…………..

oh and if you have any suggestions please let me know..

this one is for all the writer’s who get confused.