whatever they(whoever "they" might be) say about life... they have got a point

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and this is what they say - life is too important to take it seriously. this has been bothering me for sometime. like questioning my existence, nah nothing so hardcore but in a way it has. questioning my decisions and choices. my routine. my everyday. so in a way it is pretty hardcore.
 let's take the case of my blog -there's so much i have to say, share, but i trash them condemning them unfit of a post. labeling them being not true to my blog type/category[if there ever is one]. and as a result, 3 months of no blog appearances.
 i want this blog to be a diary of sorts, no not the - this what i ate, this is what i wore kind of a diary - but the kind that chronicles beautiful/interesting/inspiring things i discover/experience, the way i learn and unlearn.  this is a blog about being a work in progress.a constant work in progress. while attempting to live a life, accomplishing goals, and live boldly. 

to be master of your craft, stop pursuing it

our cook is was no cook at all.
she was clueless about the basics. let's just say she didn't know the basics. she would cook on high-flame not let the meat and the vegetables cook through.she would always, char the vegetables, always as a rule over spice or under spice the meats. etcetera. why did i still have her? she is an extremely nice woman. she is honest. her timings worked for me perfectly. and because i like to cook. while i didn't get around salvaging her culinary disasters, but when i really felt like eating something, i knew i could cook that myself. so, she barely managed the everyday routine meals, for the rest i micro-managed her or cooked it all myself.
and then she took a month off. a month became two. and then two and a half. we began to relish the stuff, the substitute cook made. though her timing were pretty hard for me.close to the graveyard shift. and she would come for just 45 mins a day. so often i had to do most of the cooking. and that sucked the joy out my kitchen time. so, when  finally my regular cook got back, i welcomed her. while i was happy to see her, the realization that we were back to eating the part-charred-part-raw stuff hit me.
but luckily weekday mornings don't leave me with much time to dwell over the contents of my lunch box.

but with the lunch time approaching, i dreaded opening my lunch box :-| when opening in front of a very hungry lot of colleagues. my maid-made rotis had laugh-of-the-day potential. they were pretty infamous in these parts. and then like all stories with happy endings - my lunch box revealed the perfect egg curry and the near perfect soft rotis [flat breads]. no less than a miracle.
next morning she arrived. she walked tall with a new confidence i hadn't noticed previously. not wanting to make a big deal about her sudden prowess in the kitchen, i casually asked her if she had been cooking a lot when away. she looked at me, and said "no i didn't even make tea during the whole time. all i did was sit with my sisters and my mother in the kitchen and watch them as they cooked my favorite things."
huh? yeah, i saw things perfectly now. she picked up nuances, the delicate details by relishing the flavors and by watching, a whole lot of watching in the kitchen.
a vacation is in order perhaps,  a vacation with neil french, hegarty and abbott.

resolution #2, go exploring, not necessarily places

explore more, explore the new and the unknown.while last year ensured i discovered newer neighborhoods, markets and some forts, and also a new country [about it later] for work. this year i will make efforts to go in search of the new - places, food [oh yes], neighborhoods, walking trails and more.

here are few pics from my recent explorations.

some installation at a mall

random view

view from my hotel

 and of course i bought nothing from Chanel. :-|

our singapore office

it's that time of the year, resolution #1 [also the most important and the toughest one.]

pardon the choice of word in the picture above, yes i did have an option to use the one that had i just don't give a damn... but it didn't quite pack the same punch. so yeah, the new year resolution also come from my list of things to do not that we have survived the doomsday - not seek an approval. it will be tough, the whole not giving a damn bit. trick is baby steps. starting with i will not give a damn about what my neighbor's guests think about me. or what the grocer in my friend's neighborhood thinks about me. i did say baby steps.

a second chance? yes, please.

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so, the world didn't end on the 21st. phew! while i certainly wasn't one of those who believed it would, i am believer of signs. so what could be a bigger sign than this? a sign that says go live a little. a sign that says, this is your second, third, and final chance to be the person you wanted to be. i will take that sign thank you. so yeah, post 21st of december 2012, i have been onto some un-me kind of things. things that i would have forever kept on  a back burner.

few examples -
1 being brasher. i usually have a comeback, but my politeness, dumbness, lack of courage, call it whatever you may, often stops me from mouthing the smart alec rejoinders.
2 dressing out of my comfort zone. tread into a world where less is less. a world where changing the color of your jeans doesn't count as adventurous. a world with ugg boots and long dresses. and orange lips.
3 getting out of my comfort zone. i tend to hover around what's easy to do/get. enough of that. point is to get what i haven't got i ought to do what i have never done.being fitter, or being better writer - requires serious work. back-breaking work.
4 make today count. because how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. ain't it. willdoittomorrow is not happening, today is what i got.
5 not be shy. i am not 'shy' shy. but i am a little awkward when the group is big. i forget to hold my own.
6 don't look for approval. not doing so will be very uncharacteristic of me. so un-me that it scares me. but then that was the whole point.
#6 will take care of everything else. it is the most liberating thing ever. just the thought makes me dizzy. :D so, yeah i will take the earth surviving the doomsday as a sign. a sign to be better, have more fun and be what i always wanted to be. and i want to be fierce.

December Challenge: An attempt at living the wholesome life - one pin at a time

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via pinterest

This December I plan to live the Pinterest life. And this is how it works - no matter how busy I get, or how lazy I am on a given day, I would still find time to do and enjoy the good things that I like. And also click a lot of pictures. Pictures of the morning tea in my yellow coffee mug, of my new favorite furniture in the morning light, of the street on my way to work, of the winter mist, of the books I read, of the nice things I buy and of all the cooking I plan to do this month. Yeah thing about cooking is, I enjoy cooking, but like they say life gets in between.
But this December I plan to do a whole lot of cooking. Once every two days, at the very least. And nothing that I have already cooked – all those exotic blog recipes – all those evenings of master chef Australia seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4 and all the Nigella Lawson sumptuousness will now have their moments in my kitchen :D. I will also read a lot. And walk a lot. because i really like to walk. So, essentially Pinterest life to me means - finding time to do what i like, each single day. Trying to be the best I can be – in everything. And taking charge of things – doing things that I want to do – no blame game nothing. And being a little happier perhaps. I will post here every three days – a chronicle of what I am doing to live the Pinterest life. One pin at a time.

Investments for an awkward-proof life

Yesterday at around 12.10pm, I experienced what was perhaps one of the most awkward moments of my adult life. At 6 hours and 40 minutes, it was undoubtedly the longest. I entered the client office with my colleagues [the suits, those who meet clients and make 17 ppts a day]. Since I was given a headsup of a possible visit to the client’s place, I had made efforts to dress well. But turns out I had forgotten about my choice of footwear. I wore flip-flops. Well, flip-flops with some thick heels or something like that. In my defense, they were mostly black with just a tiny bit of red in the straps.
Before I go on, you need to about the client we were visiting. They are our biggest and also the angriest. Important things going wrong make them angry [obviously] so do lame silly harmless things [duh!].
So, the meeting was to begin at 12 pm. We were before time, and used the time to discuss our ideas, set the presentation and fill up the whiteboard with clever and meaningful red, blue and black gabble. Just before 12, someone from the client side informed us of a possible 20 minute delay in the start of the meeting. Since we were more than ready with the preparations, I considered brushing my hair and fix that bothersome strand of hair that stopped me from looking the super-corporate woman that I thought I looked. So, I got up from the chair, picked up my bag and headed to the door, walking tall in my flip-flop heels, and then all of a sudden I was tall no more. The red strap gave away. No it did not tear. Flip-flops unlike leather sandals don’t tear, they give away. I turned a shade of crimson. A shade called disgrace. I looked around, I tried taking a step, and I couldn’t. I mean I couldn’t take a step without looking like a woman whose cheap footwear had failed her. I hurriedly got back to my chair, unkempt hair could wait, none of my colleagues at noticed. Since the strap wasn’t torn, I thought of several quick fixes. I thought of taking the pantry staff’s help, for which I would be required to step out of the meeting room; that obviously wasn’t an option. I dug deep in my bag to look for something, something to hold on to my fast-vanishing honor. And because God loves me, I had my hair in a ponytail. Not down, not in a clip, but held together by a black rubber band. The thick soft-kind. I slid the band through the flip-flop and my feet, holding them together. The jeans, which was little longer than it should have been, helped cover the black band. The client arrived, discussion happened, the rubber band never came off. One of the nosy younger lots did notice my discomfort when I had to get up from my chair and explain a point on the whiteboard but otherwise it ended without anymore disasters.
I left the client office, took a deep breath, got in my colleague’s car, looked down at the miracle band and made a list of my investment plans. Mutual funds didn’t make it to the list.