A Flower

During my undergrad days I completed a year long graphic designing course from Arena Multimedia. Even though I was not the best student of the class I still got the opportunity to teach the course to later batches for a year. That is when I really learnt interesting facts and materials about graphics, designing, advertisement world and art.

Its been ages since then and now the softwares itself has evolved a lot. Illustrator, Photoshop, Page maker, 3 D Max, Premier, Flash. I don't even remember most of the commands and tool boxes anymore. This time I was able to upload Photoshop CS and Illustrator in my laptop as well as Premier. I would have uploaded much more but the person who helped me with my uploading did not have Vista compatible softwares. And I just started brushing up my memory with the tools. My first silly creation, is this flower.

But more serious is already happening. I have been helping SH create the website that he has to make for his class project. Just about finished working on that and am in quite an exhilarated mood right now. While hubbs is busy with his group meet I am working on the creative corner. Not a Sunday I envisioned for myself but I got to learn few tricks on the job which is good.

So here is the flower for all to smell, oops behold ;-))

Its A New Day- And We Will- Since we must

Today it is Veteran's Day. The day we studied as Armistice Day, that is celebrated all over the world celebrating the end of World War I.
The 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of every year is declared as a holiday in remembrance of all war veterans in America.
A good day to record my first American election day experience which has changed a large chunk of history.
I landed back home on a memorable day for American citizens, the voters- Presidential Election Day. A day that will forever be etched in History for making a dynamic change, that the world expected but was not sure of. And so I will make this a special blog post.
I landed at 10:30 am, and was driving homewards by 11am. Reached home. Took my time to looked around and smell my belongings. Everything looks wonderful. In spite of my tiredness I had enough energy to open my luggage and pullout the gifts I bought for the house and SH. But more important than that was the American Elections and SH’s first opportunity to exercise his right as an American citizen. He wanted to share the moment with me. He knew how excited I was about the whole event. Be a part of history and feel as if even we are making history. Before we left for the voting booth we checked on the updated at CNN. Till then it looked like the decisions could go either way. I joked that Obama really needs you so let’s go. The news was that there was overwhelming turnout at the voting booths. That bit of news was worrisome since SH had to go for a Project meet. After a quick change and lunch at our no brainer “Chipotle Mexican grill”, we headed for the voting booth expecting a long line. But there were barely anyone other than the volunteers. There were 4 makeshift voting booths, 2 of them vacant. SH after the usual instructions given went into the privacy of the voting stalls, while I just lingered around. Watched SH drop his vote into the ballot box. It was fun but no, jiggles and drum rolls really. It felt normal. When we got back, the election results had tilted heavily on Obama’s side and I joked with SH about his weighty vote.
We spent the evening in front of the TV switching between news channels- CNN, CNBC , MSNBC and sometimes FOX just to laugh at the grumpy faces there. To watch the Obama family on the 4th Nov evening while Barack addressed the crowd at Grant Park, Chicago was a unique experience- Such a crowd, such influence and such expectations from one man. All that charisma, attractiveness, ivy league education that screams intelligence, perfect loving family and such wonderful smiles. I am still not jealous. because the reality begins now. America and the rest of the world is still riding on adrenaline. Another couple of months. once we are past the 20th of January 2009, and the First family, the first Black American Family settles into the White House, the world will not wait any longer to see their raised expectations to form some concrete shapes.
Who would like to be in such a tough position? With the economic stress, the real estate bomb, the stock avalanche, the war, the terrorists, and of coz all the natural calamities, earthquakes, floods, fire and tornadoes.
Even as I write, I am praying hard- YES WE CAN.

And Obama needs the prayers of every well wisher.
I will wind up with a joke. One of my friends new caption on fb is “Now that Barack is the new president of America, will they change the official name to “Barackpore”??

Also the following is a direct quote fom BigB's Blog post 198
“Longest period in History for a paint job - 219 years to paint the WHITE HOUSE , BLACK.

Let me go- I wanna go home!

I spent my first Monday at home washing everything that I thought was washing machine safe- clothes, linens and anything in between. Its been a week since I have been back from my almost 3 months (2 months 24 days to be precise) Indian summer vacation. And honestly I was eager to be back into my space.
Initially, I thought my house looked so neat, dust free and vacuumed, shocking SH who was expecting some wrath since he had left every household responsibility for me. Even the dishwasher had not been loaded for the last three days in anticipation of my return. But that comes later.
I was just so happy to be back, to my “not really very clean house”. The illusion and the tinted glasses are wearing off and I can rationalize my initial reaction. The households in India with all the maids and paid helps, still has a thick layer of dust the very second after your help swipes the dusty duster. And most people have got so used to that kind of “dust cleaning” that they do not think of it twice. I mean my initial hyper reactions to everything had mellowed by many folds by the time I boarded my plane back to San Francisco. And every time I voiced my thoughts I was given the “drop your superiority American” shrug.
But this is not what, I would like to nag about on my first blog at the end of my Indian festive holiday in almost 3 years. I want to write about my wonderful and some thought provoking times in India. And to chronicle my holiday updates, I have planned to go reverse. Yes, so I will start with my boarding of the plane and reaching SFO. Before I write about my departure from India, I must must narrate my departure. So there-
I am a lazy one. In spite of my brains revolting and telling me that I must not ask SH to do any chore for me, I do. I asked and expected him to check the baggage weight allowance on Singapore Airline, to and fro USA/India. Do I just have to repeat the story? It was just plain drama. With four suitcases (overweight), two hand in suitcases, 2 laptops. It was difficult to manage our luggage. Not many of your friends have a big enough car/van or live near enough to help us with our luggage. But thankfully we have at least one. SH asked his friend with a brand new seven seater to help us with our luggage transportation. It was very stressful and hazardous. My constant prayers were in vain when we were informed in a sorry tone about being 15 kgs over weight. I checked in my hand suitcase for an extra charge of $109. I was quite depressed about the charge cause that would have been so much handy in India ;-))
But just be happy the charge was only till Singapore. I was going to see one of my closest friends from college after 5 years. Singapore was a blast and will be covered in a special post dedicated to only my lovely lovable friend and her adopted country. We realized that the old Samsonite was outdated and weighed 10 kgs. So we threw it and bought a durable, light American tourist in Singapore dollars. With some gifts given to my friend and her beautiful baby boy we were 3 kgs over the mark. But the front desk girl excused our extra kgs and we were off for India.
During my comeback journey from Delhi, I tried my best to fit my things within my weight limits. I almost did. I was 4kgs over but the fellow on the desk acted as if I was over the limit by 400. He must be a really depressed fellow. “I know ma’am you are a resident of USA ma’am but I am sorry.USA is very strict. If it was some other country we would be fine.” SHUT UP. Anyways, I pulled some stuff from my suitcases and put them in my handbag but was still 1kg overweight. What a stupid fellow he must be to call the manager to ask if I could be allowed 1kg extra. His boss, a young girl looked at him and said “sure, that’s just fine.” – in a tone that suggested, you really need to call me for this???
The rest of the journey went eventless. I met up with some friends in Singapore who had boarded from Kolkata and we travelled together for SFO. I watched a number of offbeat movies and Australian comedies, played Sudoku, ate vegan and slept. I Love the new facelift of Singapore airplanes. More leg space, bigger, nicer TV screens, leather seats and designer stuff(Givenchy). A nice trip back.

But the best part of every vacation is that in the end you are back home and able to appreciate what you have built for yourselves.