musings ....

and I stand up, dust myself and move on....

down but not out

something snapped inside me a few months back, I felt as if I was in this deep dark hole with no way out. Despite being proven to be the world's biggest idiot, I think at some level I am still an optimist. But I have almost never been at peace with myself for a long long time.

You make mistakes, bad judgements and have to live through the consequences. A lesson learnt hard among many others.

Hmmm and what led to this? letting work and self esteem connect; giving up work without getting a professional degree and being delusional about my re employment prospects and taking marriage for granted..... and my life unravels beyond control, atleast for a while.

and now a wiser me is putting all that together. Marriage well on the track, A and I are doing things we have'nt done for years. Sadly, have'nt done much about self esteem issues. And yes, I am also working towards getting a degree to improve re employment prospects. Well, at least I won't regret not having tried to put my life back together.

Breakfast, my favourite meal of the day...

So, JB and me decided to have breakfast out today morning. got up early, got dressed and set off hoping to find some breakfast place open at 8.30am in the morning. None of the three on our list were open. So we decided to come home and make a mean breakfast ourselves, and this is what we had...

peanut butter, nutella and banana mini-sandwich

Salmon and cheese mini-sandwich

Tomato and oregano bread with fried egg

orange juice

Some fruit, musk melon and watermelon wedges

... and cold chocolate milk for JB and piping hot darjeeling tea for me to wash it all down.

Fabulous breakfast but looks like our appetites have taken a royal beating ; the marmite and mulberry jam went back into the fridge untouched and the sausages and ham were never opened.

We'll probably have french toast with chocolate sprinkles tomorrow.. yummm!!

my usual...

I love a good chic flick once in a while, tonight I saw 'no strings attached' sigh!

Ashton Kutcher: you are made for chic flicks; Natalie Portman: you don't need to be so intense!!!.....

my usual has changed.

I am discovering the unexplored genre of crime, suspense and action. No, it does'nt scare me nor do I find it difficult to go to sleepnor do I see shadows on the wall in the dark; after watching one of those...

Gulmohar.....

last summer I was thrilled that I noticed the Gulmohar tree and its resplendent hot orange beauty, it was beautiful and symbolised hope for nice things to come.. this year the sight irritates me. It reminds me of being unemployed for little over a year...

The Oscar party.. 2011

A friend, a firm believer in a numerology told me that the year 2011 is going to be a year of 'change'.
So, The Oscar party which I had kept thinking of organising for teh last 5 years, finally happened. It was a girlie night with a difference... two doctors, one film critic, one documentary film producer, two interior designers, one writer, one educationist, one ex-hotel professional turned caterer and one sportwoman.
An good mix of people and some good food and wine... The King's Speech, sweeping all the awards this year, swept the Oscars too, though Inception and Social Network collected some significant ones too..
having the party on Monday evening was a bummer though, but what was heartening was almost all my invitees made it.
Looking forward to making this an annual event, finally....

Parenting....

A and I have always been very conscious parents. We deliberated, discussed and argued about almost everything we did with JB. Whether it was which school he should go to, what we would tell people when they asked why?, what after school activities he should indulge in, developing hobbies, interests .. everything. And so far JB has done well. I don't think most people can make out the amount of influence we, his parents, have on the kind of person he is growing up into, or rather most people have but don't realise it. We do spend a lot of time with him and make an effort to ensure family time is respected, whether it is taking him cycling or for a swim or setting up a complicated lego set or just hanging around the house watching movies ......

Parenting is never easy and neither can it be treated as a by the way thing. You don't take chances with a life you made a choice to bring into this world.

Why am I suddenly proffessing my views on parenting ? why, the whole world is doing it! Amy Chua's book ' The battle hymn of the tiger mother' has got everyone talking. I will give her that.

My take on the book ? I am not shocked by her 'chinese' parenting style. As she mentions many times in the book, many Asian communities including Indian parents have similar beliefs. But yes, Indians are a little more toned down in their approach, being more social and emotional than the chinese. Like Amy, I do not agree with the pseudo westernised ways of parenting I have been seeing even in many upper middle class urban parents. I don't believe a child of 7, 8 or even 10 knows enough about the world to be able to make their own informed decisions on what to eat, choice of after-school activities or socially acceptable behaviour. Most people I know who did that, blamed their parents for not guiding them when faced with the consequences many years later. And that is not the way to teach a kid decision making. There are tons of other significant decisions a kid can take on his own..managing pocket money, making a a study plan, scheduling playdates and so on, which do not require you to have the wisdom of the world.

Amy did manage to teach Lulu persevearance, the value of practice and hard work and instill a drive to succeed through the drill she put the kid through for her violin lessons. Lulu picked up the important lessons and just used them elsewhere. The chinese parenting worked, though differently in this case.

I don't know how JB is going to turn out eventually, but all I can ensure is that the effort to get him to make something of his life is made.

And for the record, we had to push him to practice piano for the first few years too... Today, he has began to enjoy playing it so much, that he has set himself a hard target for the year without consulting us. The drive to do a job well, and having to work hard to get there, is something he learnt during his piano lessons and is being used very effectively in other areas in school, like quiz competitions, class tests etc.

No, I do not endorse Amy's views (well not all of them), but neither do I find them blasphemous.

Balance to me is an important concept, in whatever one does. Even parenting.....