on why i love sleeping....

This is happening to me for maybe the nth time. i have a particularly messy code to fix and the turnover is tomorrow. The client suggested a code which i did not like. It was not elegant and i was not comfortable enough to load it. Yesterday was spent trying to figure out a bug in one of the kids' code. So i did not have a chance to look into the problem i was supposed to fix. i even took a printout of the program hoping to maybe read it at home and figure out an elegant solution. Of course, i did not even take out the printout when i reached home - talk about trying to juggle between career and home!

Anyway, i woke up in the middle of the night and came up with this simple but elegant fix. i mean, i just woke up and thought "hey, maybe i should fix it this way". i guess my sub-conscious mind was working on this porblem the whole time i was watching the silly serials and those haseena doing the stunts on Khataron ki khiladi! This has happened many times before. i would just wake up and come up with solutions to problems that seemed seemingly unsolvable during my waking hours. Does it mean my sub-conscious mind is so much more powerful than the conscious one i am so proud of? But then, who cares. Conscious or sub-conscious, my mind is my own.

i talked to SM and told him about it and he said it was the best solution to this problem. Now, i have to tell my client that i am not going to code the way he wants me to and try not hurt his ego!!

flog me, please

My Visa interview is scheduled for next Monday. i hate the whole process – esp. the waiting for the interview. As it is, i am never asked more than two-three questions before they decide that i am all OK to get that visa. So it gets my goat to sit there for 2-3 hours for my turn.

i was asked today when i wanted to go onsite. Now that i am getting my way, i want to delay the trip for some months at least! i am so fickle – like a candle in the wind (now, what is that supposed to mean?). And to think i have turned down the promotion for this! i am so undecided about life! i cannot make up my mind whether to float or to drown. i need to be flogged to death.

time out

So he has the deadline sitting on his back. And given my talent as a drama-queen, he thought it best for me to stay with my sister as he would be coming home very late everyday. Which is smart on his part. Because i would have fumed and spewed fire and smoke! i protested at first – i felt like i was abandoning him in his time of need. But he pointed out that knowing that he has a fuming female waiting up for him was not exactly going to help him meet the deadline. Touché!

So i am with my sister and living it up while he is probably starving and dying of exhaustion! Such fun, if you ask me.

So we watch those silly soaps on TV and fight for the remote. We even had a competition yesterday to see who can flip through all the channels faster!

Oh hail the goddess of compilers! For the past two hours, i have been trying to get a program compiled and it keeps returning me errors – for something i have to turn over tomorrow – until it had me wondering whether i should actually resign. But i changed one declaration and viola, it compiled correctly! Why the hell can’t the compiler return me an error message that exactly tells me where i went wrong instead of trying to be all cryptic?

Anyway, i think i will make the deadline, as always!

Distance is good for relationships. Sometimes you tend to take each other for granted. It helps to step back a little. And loosen the bonds a bit. It helps to realize that we are not creepers that need to be twined around each other to survive. It feels good to just love without expecting to be loved back.

the last straw

i talked to Ema the other day and she told me she was just about to go take part in the sit-in demonstration against the kidnapping of children. This has been in the news for quite some days now – not my mother in the sit-in protest but the kidnapping of children.

Apparently, some militant outfits are kidnapping kids to train them as child soldiers. When i read about this, the first thing that crossed my mind was, well, this has to be the last straw. The camel’s back must break now. i think the people of Manipur should now wake up and see the monsters masquerading as do-gooders.

How would anyone justify anything as inhuman as this? That you can snatch school going children and train them to fight their cause. And what is their cause? What are they fighting for? Independence? From whom? From what? In their so called fight for independence, they have taken away the freedom of the common man – the freedom to live life without fear. They say we are being given step-motherly treatment by the Centre. Who is going to help a society that cannot help itself? And these very people who steal the money that the Centre allots for the welfare of the people cry foul that we are not being looked after.

Once upon a time, when i was young, i used to think the “naharols” (militants) are good people who are trying to cleanse our society of the many ills that plague us. And now, i know better. They are no better than parasites feeing off the society. And we have fed them enough. Now it is time to purge them.

My sister told me the parents are scared to let their children go to school. She told me she does not want to stay there in Manipur anymore, that things are getting out of hand day by day. It is like a cancer spreading. I worry about my cousins and my niece. I worry about the kids back home. About the kids who have been kidnapped – just imagine the physical and psychological trauma. No child deserves this. No society deserves to be at the mercy of such people.

Every day i hear new stories of their atrocities. Once, i asked my mother to ask my brother-in-law to set up some business. She told me it would be of no use. They would be there to extort money if he even makes a little profit. She told me that they demanded Nokia mobile phones from the shop-keepers – people who are trying to earn a livelihood. They have to appease the parasites first before they can think of their family.

Let this be the last straw.

passport to hell???

i have got my passport - which will last me another 10 years. i have a feeling my passport might outlive me. i had to go to the passport office which is on the other end of the city and wait for 4 hours to get it. Such patience is unbecoming!

i went there blissfully unaware of the fact that my patience would be tested. Lunch-less, i reached there exactly at the time the agent specified (I am sooo punctual!) and the agent told me to sign on some document. That done, he asked me whether it would be possible for me to come back the next day to get the passport. I said no way. So he told me i would have to wait till 6. i said fine, i will wait. So i waited. And waited. And waited. Looked around. Observed people. The notice boards. The counters. And i finally got bored. And hungry. Bad combination if you ask me. So i went out, saw this guy selling used books, bought one and a bottle of Pulpy orange (as if anyone is interested in the brand of orange you endorse) and went back. i sipped, read, looked around. Read, sipped and looked around. And finally they started announcing the names. Another one hour and still my name was not announced. i had finished the book. So i had nothing better to do than look at the other unfortunate souls waiting for that elusive booklet.

When i least expected it, the guy called my name. Thrilled, i went to stand in the line. And at last, i was handed my new passport – mint-fresh.

Now, i have to carry two passports with me for the rest of my life. As if the burden of safe-guarding one passport was not enough.