A "VACATION" that wasn't - 2011

Mallu Aunty..SELFISH..Call me when you feel like talking......Dinner Date....Personalized Home cooked dinner....Godiva...shopping...airport rides...Starbucks and biscottis...CALIFORNIATION...Nothing wrong in deserving something better...you are the most selfless person....I am so candid and funny only with you...your reflexes have gone down..too much Baton Rouge influence....rich Anglo Indian business woman...chic...KUMAR'S SISTER...HUG..you are more than a fren..........same time zone!...12 mile cycle ride...Bernie...chaats...madurai idli kadai...Victoria secrets...highway 280...infinite money source...combined studies..mortey..."Love in the air"...can’t comment I have not worked with you..RP..SMOKING HOT GREEK GOD...Sight Seeing...

OMG! Arpitha Cooked!!!!....there is never any age limit for knowledge and that is the only asset you will have with you forever.....80% ENGLISH 20% KANNADA....911 On HOLD...2 in 1....Khoon Bhari Mhang....YEH JO DESH HEIN MERA Swadesh hein tera....40% KANNADA 60% ENGLISH....Royal "Othla"...Remote Village Girl...Biscotti Strike....Russian Spy..Virtual Reality..Anything is ok...NJ Transit..Path..Subway...PITHA...I love you but you have no job so let me stick with my husband...Dunkin Dougnuts....B to the A, B to the A, BABA...Tailor Made Tapori...Half chicken half veg pizza....In MBA does M stands for Money right ?

Things that matter!

A point in time...when I am undergoing the most craziest if not the most saddest is not the most horrifying if not the most wonderful  if not the most confusing if not the most toughest time in my entirety...I would like to take some time off not thinking about myself but just to reflect on things around me....

Had I not thought about the essays I had writing during my MBA admit last evening..I would not have been able to write what I am about to write now :-)

1. A 10+ year long friend..really really good friend...A person who I think is one of the best I have know to date. Someone who I admire, adore, envy and am myself with told me "There is nothing wrong in demanding  what you deserve..or for that matter pursuing something better....this is the first time I see you doing this..." -> The guilt that was bothering me for a long time now has at the least subsided hearing her say this to me!

2. A guy who used to talk the least in my Footloose Gang...has been trying to find ways to convince me to do something BIG in life... arguing with me why I should not study further...why I should move out of Baton Rouge..or for that matter how dumb I have become ;-) ....and end of the day he tells me "I never talk or be like this with anyone".... :-)

3. On board in a public bus, have $10 note..need $2 change else I loose the whole $10..and there is this one guy at the end of the bus...I approach him and say "Excuse me do you have change for $10"..and he just opens his bag and gives me a stack of 25 cents worth $10. And he gets down in the next bus stop..........wow that made me wear a smiley face for 10 mins at the least.....


4. Conversing with my aunt for close to 2 hours....sorry I meant Gossiping :-)...forgetting the fact that it is an IST call [ Bro pays the bills though :-P ] and forgetting my present state of mind for those 2 hours....since I felt I was there not here.....well the "Disconnection Sound" of the phone got me back to reality..........nevertheless it was wonderful....


..........and back to reality is I am one screwed up person right now!!!


People who are wondering whats going one will get to know very soon...if only I have the courage........

Social Exchange Theory (SeXT)..........

I thought I had the most boring class in my MBA this semester...Organizational Behavior! Until I got a C in my mid-terms and from then on I made sure I was INTERESTED in it :-)......

Of all the things I learnt in the class the one that caught my attention was SeXT. The gist of it is :
1. We never do any favors or help someone out of our way without our own "selfish" reasons behind it!
2. A relationship dies over a period of time when only one person in giving and there is no passive if not active response from the other end!

I am surprised that I AGREE to both the above statements!

I have had friends who have helped me so much and I have had friends who tell me I am a GOOD person. But at the end of the day, the reason you are good or bad towards someone might be for some reasoning of your own. I feel I care and help and do things out of my way for people I love, like and care for. Or at times do it since I feel happy about it. So its all about ME!!

And coming to the latter point, there is always some expectation from a relationship. If that is not met or failed continuously it would eventually die. Again it is about ME and MY expectations! I want to be happy and once you see that might not hold good in the long run I would try to opt out of it. I used to feel that it is an incorrect choice to be made, but having experienced it....I feel its better to opt out and be neutral than continue and be unhappy!

However this is NO  RULE!! There are always exceptions such as :

1. Transformational leaders might not have had a selfish incentive in the beginning or the incentive might have died in the long run!
2. Love & Care of your parents towards you is in no way effected by how much you love them.

Well from the looks of it SeXT  exists and is real for ME!


Thinking Hard,
Arpitha

Done with 3rd Sem....One More to Go!!!!

Yo Yo!!! I have successfully completed my 3rd semester roller coaster ride!!!! And I  am :-) & :-( about it at the same time!!!!
I remember, a few days after the initial excitement of coming here I just wanted to be done with things and move on...In fact I distinctly remember  having the conversation with a few friends here when I had said " I have come here to get my masters and not for making friends".....[This might be my natural thought knowing the fact that I am over EMOTIONAL DRAMA person => stay away stay safe]
Now after 3 semesters...my CEBA class room, my classmates, preparing for the whole day stay on campus, frequent visit to my work place each day, meeting buddies, late night sleep is MY LIFE!!!!
I can proudly accept I may not be the exact same person I was when I left India. It makes me wonder was I always like this or have I transitioned over a period of time....or is it just human "adaptation" taking over me!!!! Each time I iterate through these thoughts I get LOST even more.......
Thinking beyond all this is the reality.... my stay in Baton Rouge is short LIVED...will I enjoy my last semester stay here or will I be more worried about leaving this place soon...I don't know....Or may be I don't  want to move or don't want to think about it.......
For the time being I am just excited about the vacation time in December with my Brother and my MT friends. Hope spending time with them will help me clear up my thoughts......



:-) / :-(
Arpitha

Rope Course!

A COLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Friday morning.....EARLY Morning (8 AM)...Temperature 6 Degree Celsius..less than 4 hours of sleep.....A team building activity I was adamant not to participate in and the tasks which gives me goose bums even now lay ahead of us. The fact that it was totally optional made it even more hard to move an inch towards it..... "ROPE COURSE".


I wanted to be a passive spectator rather I just wanted to tuck myself under the warmth and softness of my comforter back home. But the sight of a few MBA's doing it..that too Gals made me stand close to it and watch. All the while thinking "Why take the risk, I am not in a good mood or good shape, exams coming soon and it is totally OPTIONAL". And Yun ( MBA Classmate) who had just completed the task pushed me to try one of them.

1. Climb 15 Feet and walk on a wood log Millions of Miles apart ( that's how it felt when I was walking on it). Reach the other end and climb another 15 feet and this time walk on a rope. It took an eternity for me to do this and every step I took made me feel it more of a dream than  a reality.

2. I just got down from the 1st task, hands cold, legs shaking and all I needed was a "Physical" push by Yun to go in for the next one. This apparently was the most challenging one as per the instructor. As I was climbing 30 feet high on the pole, one of the clamps to hold the feet fell apart. I shuddered and it was a convenient excuse for me to back out. But the instructor and the MBAs encouraged me to go on. It was challenging and fun.

3. The 3rd one needed no push, I wanted to be done with it. Climbing on single pole 30 feet high, standing on it and free jumping [ almost like bungee jumping, which is my dream]. This by far was the hardest and scariest of the lot. I didn't do well in this may be because I was tired, scared or the fact that I didn't know how to balance myself on a pole!!!

End of it, I was content , happy and proud of myself for what I did :-) . It was worth the "RISK". To add to my happiness - for one of the team building activities my classmate and a very very good person [ according to me] lifted me single handed!!!! Wow!!! Am I that Weight"less" :-D


All in all Rope Course ROCKED me!!!

This is not me in the picture.

Hurt my little finger, since I was holding the rope very tightly while doing the last task.


P.S :

1. There were enough safety measures taken, so anyone and everyone can complete most of these tasks.
2. The motivation and push from the MBAs made me do it, if not I don't think I would be even blogging about it.
3. The wound pained like hell for almost 2 days, though it looks tiny and minuscule in the picture!

Friends are Friends......

This may be a controversial topic :-) depending on who is reading it... nevertheless let me make an attempt to convey what I need to tell....

I don't have a lot of friends in my basket or rather I don't a have  a lot of "good" friends in my basket....may be because I am too choosy, too difficult to be friends with, too selfish or too straight forward or what my best friend from Engineering ASIMA calls"Complicated" . Whatever the reason may be, though I have a limited set of friends, I am very happy and content! However, here in Baton Rouge I have difficulty in finding people who can sync up with my thought process.... apparently my friends here don't understand what I say...:-)...I had my own doubts about this and had a thought that may be I really don't say things in ways that people can understand....however a week back I chatted with ASIMA after 1.5 years ( We email each other but have never had a live chat)...and we just picked up from where we left as if the time and distance made no difference...and she could get EXACTLY what I intended to say and commented "I have missed chatting with you like this"...there were no bounds to my happiness hearing someone understands what I mean to say and they acknowledged it!!! WOW!!! :-) Now when I see this seems to be true with all my friends I have had for many many years we pick up topics instantaneously and chat away to glory without having any communication gap.....

It makes me wonder.....do we loose tolerance to understand people as we grow older and  type cast people according to our convection.....or is it just my personal experience....

Confused,

Arpitha!

Thali! -> All things you want in one Plate.....:-)

Around the time when I was in middle school my family and my Aunt's family planned for a 1-day trip to a place close to Bangalore. And like all other trips this was a visit to a Temple. We were getting back from there late in the evening and my mom came up with the idea of visiting my grand mom's hometown on the way and slowly a mega plan was made on what places we should be visiting travelling back. The cab driver was upset ( too sad he cant get back home early on a weekend) and said why do you all want to add such small destinations when the main destination is covered! I said "Uncle, for lunch rice and sambar are the main course, that does not mean we would not want the appetizers, the desserts and ...." and the whole car exploded laughing.

I narrated this story since I was reminded about this episode recently when I was conversing with someone. It was about LIFE & CAREER! Yeah, we all know many of us might not get what we want in life and many of us might not get what we want in career though we deserve something more (trying to rationalize ;-) )!. Also just because our life or career goals (Main course ) are met should we stop pursuing the other ( appetizers, desserts)?? Well some people who keeping pursuing for better opportunities and advancements are called "Cunning" and some who are content and happy with what they have are called "Slackers"...but who are we to decide when our priorities are different from those we are trying to judge ?

Will we all be able to get all things we want in one life (Thali) ? Or do we keep cribbing, comparing, blaming and rationalizing for the BADS and think we rightly deserved the GOODS? For those who think like that,  remember Life is fair or unfair to all ;-), not unfair to only ME nor to U!


P.S - The reason for this blog been so "complicated"  if you think so is because I just took a 3 hours financial analysis quiz...Like the quiz I started off the blog with some idea and ending it with another idea.....and it so happens Finance is my fav subject ;-)