Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving 2012: this is the first time we broke the tradition me & Ruma had started. Because of moving & such, we skipped making, hosting the Thanksgiving dinner this year. Instead we had dinner with one of our friends and the highlight was ‘khasir mangsho’ and roasted chicken.

It makes me sad. It makes me sad for not being able to buy the turkey, wash & clean it with Siana watching, and then bake it. Last year she was quite excited. She kept asking if the Turkey was done yet. She wanted to open the fridge to make sure the turkey was OK. Didn’t get to do any of those this year.

But I am also delighted, happy about not getting sucked into the whole ‘Black Friday’ thing this year. Just like Eid, Thanksgiving is about spending time with family, loved ones, or close friends. It is sad to see the whole thing becoming more & more commercialized. For big retails, ‘Black Friday’ wasn't enough; they had to start ‘Black Thursday’ too? Or at least that’s what it seemed like on my run on Thursday morning at 4.00 am. I was running down Hickman when I saw all these people lined up in front of Kmart and more cars were turning in to the parking lot. Part of me felt devastated for humanity.

This is the kind of world our kids are going to grow up in? What are we teaching to our kids? It is more important to possess something, post about it on Facebook than spend time with your family. So what will happen when a kid living in Kansas finds out about the great deal in the only store in Nebraska? Won’t he be tempted to skip the dinner with family for the awesome deal? Is that not happening already?

At our friends’ house last night, I was trying to make the point, trying to get the idea, message across. I even used the Eid as a connotation. It felt like, I was hitting a wall with all five adults. The blank expression on their face and right afterward showing the stuff they had bought on BF.

We as humans are already turning books down in favor of some gadgets. We are already forgetting how to write with a pen & paper. Now it is more important to post a pic of a dying person on Facebook then help that person…well hell, we might as well kick Thanksgiving to the curb. 

Being in IT

So, what is it like being in IT? Why am I even asking that question after all these years?

Well, we had to make a pretty big decision between relocating to Minneapolis or Charlotte. That’s another post, to be followed soon. But this process has been frustrating. Making the decision and getting everything lined up, has been a major pain. But as we are preparing to leave, I have been discovering a lot about myself and to some extent about my better half.

About myself, being in IT:

1.       Very detail oriented. I constantly find myself going over several things over and over.

2.       With that also comes, things being in order. Even if it looks chaotic from outside, in my head at least I have a good idea the order things should be.

3.       When things are not in order or the details are fuzzy, I get irritated easily.

4.       Having a child I have also learned the value of “Backup Plan.” It is very important for me to have some sort of backup plan in place if one or two things go wrong during the process.

There’s a devil inside me that sometimes wants to throw everything on the curb and just go with. I highly doubt that will ever happen; I highly doubt my subconscious will ever let me do that though.

Now, these might be desirable to have on an employee. What will happen though when I get old? How am I going to react to forgetting things? Things not being in order…

About Pagli:

1.       She has enormous patience. Whether it is putting up with all my madness, going over everything over and over or just Siana or both, she puts up with it.

2.       She has the ability to calm me down. I need to figure out how exactly she does that?

3.       She is also starting to see things more from a flowchart perspective. Thinking ahead and now.

4.       She is always trying to find ways to save money. Since we have been thinking about a second kid, I would’ve never think of using Siana’s crib but she first made the suggestion to save us from buying another one.