World is Small

 Today, after I have 2 kids, a small cavalier dog, spent 4decades of life, citizenship change and in general growing older , I find myself I am lost. I need to find myself, that includes reconnecting with friends (old/new), finding old/new hobbies to spend time for myself and reinventing myself again!  Last 15yrs in America got away spending time for family, keeping them as my priority. They will still be priority given one is teenager now and the other is following not far behind. Now I need to look forward and collect my self-confidence and achieve my personal goals. 

Finally hubby's course got over and he has a break of a month. That means more of me-time. So i am cooking in the evenings more so, since i get time in the evenings while he takes the kid out to play. :) Love it, no more eating out during lunches or pizza delivery orders for the dinner. I wish things get smoother even after he joins back his studies by Oct again. After so long i made Gajar halwa, and for the first time tried to make Chenna poda which came out delicious. I wish to try out new receipes soon.

After long I got a trip to myself, thanks to F5. My second trip to Seattle, first was for the interview so i came in on Thursday eve stayed overnight, gave my interview on Friday and 3:30 back to airport to SJC. This time i reached here on Sunday night after the camp night out on Sat (july 30) at Gilroy Gardens, and returning back today on Wednesday Aug 3. This all time to myself, had lot of walking in and around downtown, been to pike market place, piers along the coast, space needle, downtown macys shopping. Well had some time to myself, although with the boring 2days office training. I do wish to come here again, but with family. By myself is such a boring experience. I wish to travel with my Akshun and be happy and see him happy walking around. Its been a terrible thing to be not around him.  Miss my baby. I will be home in another few hours and united with Akshun.

These links are for my information only.. its not easy to find the link instantly for the things i need. hence pasting here 2links for the camp reservation sites : both tents and cabin.. www.recreation.gov and www.reserveamerica.com I am looking for some more, once i bump across them, will update here.

I have joined F5 Networks starting this Monday as Platform Test Engineer, and God! what a different era of technology I am in. I have now nothing much to deal with the protocol/automation. Now its more of CPLDs, FPGAs, firmware upgrade, Hardware test, FAVs, etc. All new mnemonics and whole new world. Yesterday been to Flextronics Facility which had a big factory making devices for F5, Palo Alto Networks, Dells and what not. I was wearing a suit (forgot what its called now) and the anti-static band with static check on my body with the band on. It was different to see how each component on a motherboard or board gets attached automatically, then soldered, then tested, then assembled. Hope I got to go there again to visit and see more. Overall i am excited and looking forward to surprises now..

Just watched the movie, an Education and felt delighted. Its never late to study. Feels good movie. Nice watch.

Life got busier now. Since I started working, I am surprised I didn't put any words here. Things have changed a bit. Moved to our new house in Fremont area. Loving the house but not yet done with the settling down in the new house. Did puja on 23rd Sept at 3pm or so. We all 3 were present and did the boiling milk thing for the gruhapravesh with breaking coconut at the enterance and shanti homma. Moved to the new house on 3rd oct, Sunday and things are busy since then. Carpooling a little longer distances, and then arranging things, finding misplaced stuff, trying to find place where to stuff. trying to organise the house.. purchasing small and big things for big house. List goes on and on. We went to Durga puja event and Diwali mela recently. Akshun enjoyed the nice typically and good rassogolla at the Durga puja in hayward. Akshun had his school photograph taken and also went for halloween parade at Yahoo! He was a lion this season. Picked up his pumpkin at school. Enjoyed ...

Now i fall back with my healthy schedule. Reasons can be provided like had interviews/studying/watching movie/simply being busy etc etc, but at the end the main point is - I didnt do it. I can feel the heat of not working out. Can feel a difference when i go and workout vs when i have been doing nothing. Right now going thru some Perl book to update myself. Alongside what I want to do is update my English. I seriously need to prepare for 1. some certification to add to my resume and 2. prepare for MS here in US. I definitely need to go for higher studies, which i know isnt going to be easy owing to having a family and being always busy. Planning to start working back so don't know when will I have time to think about myself. Sometimes i just feel did I just wasted 15months of my career because I have my lovely son with me now. Or did I use it in a much better way with my baby shielding him and providing mamma's care. But lets not waste any further time. :)

Yep, started working out, eating healthy, maintaining good posture, not being lazy, jotting down things to do and see them towards completion, driving, studying  .. and all good things that i should do to get back the hold of my own life. Bought a new nike shoes after wearing off my old Reebok for 2yrs. And started sending my son to day care :) Getting much better time to think about myself now. Akshun is growing up fast and he is able to listen and refer what I am trying to say to him. Life is becoming much better, interesting and busier. Hope to continue with the good deeds for long.

Well i travelled with my 12month old alone and what a charm my son is. He was so happy and better than any other kids on the long 16hr flight. He enjoyed his time and was so quite and helping. He was playing or sleeping or taking rest or watching tv or playing with remote all the time. He is a sweetheart. I travelled so peacefully on both my SFO-Dubai and Dubai-BLR flight. He enjoyed when i was carrying him on baby-bjorn too. He gets so happy when i m standing/walking with him on baby carrier. We enjoyed our Bangalore trip too. But sorry, couldnt take any snaps outside in bangalore. Been to shoppers stop and Forum mall only. and yes met my old friends shaila, amit, darshan at home. nice bangalore have changed a lot in past 3yrs itself. And Bangalore is expanding in population and the urban space. i just wish Bangalore trees remain the same as it was few years before.

Finally i drove our car in India alone. With US license and no Indian license. It was nice experience as it wasn't at all planned. Driving wasn't tough given that we have an automatic car. But yeah it was raining too. :) All coz its not easy nowadays to find a driver in our area and to get an auto costs same as booking a car with driver with travel agent. I was comfortable driving and I drove all places, busy roads, highway and  small roads, with lots of intersection and pedestrian traffic without signals. Enjoyed my expedition today.

Wow, now I have my own MacBook Pro. Till now i was working loaning it from my hubby :). I know I need to be more productive now. he he he.. Yet to configure and setup everything for the mac. After three years I feel good about owning my own laptop. ha ha ha.. Will write more after I set it up and start working. Lets see how I use it now, for browsing, for movie or for studies. In fact, I wish to do the later.

I now may have to think twice while taking my baby out for shopping. He just want to play with the items in the shop arranged on different isle. He doesnt like to be strapped on his stroller or stay with us. He just wants to be left alone on ground and he wud go everywhere around the shop and play play n play. And he just screams (as he cannot talk) if his wishes aren't granted. Cute and clever kids. he he he..

Why isn't it easy when u sit at home and become lazy that you even forget to make a to-do lists. And keep forgetting that you need to be more organized!! Huh!! Well i am out of it now. .  I have so much to do and I need to figure out what needs to be done first and with priority. I just wish I can go to my pre-marriage life. So that I do things at my own pace.  Well thats just an advantage of being a single. Now I need to be more responsible which I am not becoming. :)  Nowadays running after the kid, thinking of what to feed him and feeding him is the most time i spend in. I  know that these responsibilities are new and will always be there, but now I want some break. It isn't that I want to leave all the responsibilities, but I want to become more organized so that I get time for myself, for my kid and be happy in the game. 

I am back to blogging again, more to keep myself alive with the good spirits. :) Been long that I haven't been in touch with friends. Its been long since i worked, and since I thought about myself. Thanks that it all was for the better. I had a sweet baby boy and he is now close to an year. I wish to plan something good and different for his first year party, so that he can join and enjoy too. Yeah, life is becoming hectic and dull being at home all the time. At times I wish I can come out of the cocoon and see the brightness outside. Though, being in cocoon, I am preparing my son to become a beautiful butterfly so that he comes out with flying colors. Well I am happy he is coming along well. I now need to take time out for myself to do things that I enjoy or once enjoyed. Demands of baby are overwhelming sometimes but I wish to satisfy them all without being sacrificing my own.

So no more hectic Fridays I suppose - its been easier with my new job which i changed last year in Sept.   I am more into the Server testing on the telecom side. But not entirely the core telecom networking job.

With my experience in past, i have observed a quite busy Fridays especially near the time of the nightly builds or the releases coming in. The reason being, you will need to do some kinda big regressions over the weekend, some kinda performance test/soak test and what not. And for that you may need the whole set (again a problem of searching missing pieces in your setups). Then do the required environment setup, start the automation test/scripts/whatever the method. Wait for around 30min to see, nothing is broken.. And then go home peacefully. If you have about even 40% of things ready you will take a whole 4hrs time on the weekend - given the build(nightly or release) is ready by 12noon which is rarely the case. Other times, you just get busy running here n there for some issues which gets solved by late evening. And thus our fridays become typical busy days!! Wow i love days other than Fridays ;) But, I still look forward to Friday for the next two days it invites (weekend or saturda...

I wonder which is a good snack for the office. Don't have a full time cafeteria at office. And around 4-5pm I feel like munching on something. So whats the best food for that time, which isnt too heavy/fatty. Do not want to choose something from the vending machine, they are all oily, fried or junk stuff. I keep granola bars at desk, just in case. But at times like today, when I am not that hungry but just want to munch on- what is the best next option? Fruits (needs to bring in morning from home), popcorn ( don't really know how to pop the packets in microwave), some nuts (needs to be really judicious about which is good and which is not), tea (how much and how many times allowable), coke (soda - wants to stay away from them), granola bars (any other option), some tic-tacs and wrigleys (dont like chewing gum at work). Hmm whats the best one to go for.. or just a mix of things? May be keeping a bag of carrots and Apple and other whole fruits is a best idea. Lets see..

Its good that I am enjoying my new and the first job in US. Its a small team, good ppl but busy ppl, so need to find out stuff myself. Need to put in a little more effort to learn things. The technology I will be working on is Video/MPEG etc etc which is really interesting (but i always wanted to keep distance). Wish to get a good grip soon and be on track of contributing things myself. Oh yes, life is going on good. Not at least sitting back at home and do nothing/sleep/browse. Yes its true though that towards the end of each day, i feel exhausted. And this is just my 3rd day at work. I am yet to get my driving license. Good that my office is close by to where i stay, so that not a big trouble for getting a ride. Hope to put up some more info on my tech blog with the things i am studying right now. Wikipedia has really great write-ups on this technical area. And for everything keeping my fingers crossed for the best for my career in US.

At times, I am forced to believe that with the economy going down, the jobs in the software industry are also getting a setback. I have never imagined, it would take this long for me to find a job in the market with my expectation of job profile as well as salary. It isn't that my profile doesn't match, its just that, I see less number of job listing each day. Either there will be no new updates on the job sites, or there would be just a reposting of the older job description. Its very easy to get bored of this job search and very irritating on how slow the market is, both in terms of the no. of openings an the payment options left. Hmm, nevermind coz searching for a job was never supposed to be easy but a sheer luck. If luck is eluding me right now, may be I will have a better luck next time. I am still very positive of getting a break soon.. :)