The debate within...

Work as usual is busy... A conference is coming up on Friday, May 7th in LA. 7th May ironically is also the deadline for my work project. I have been debating now for a few weeks whether to take the day off from work and go attend the conference or stay at work and try to meet my deadline. :) While I am debating, the ticket keeps getting more and more expensive. In essence, the debate boils down to: Think about my future OR think about my present... the dilemma continues... :)

Saturday events

One of the collateral from my MBA program is that I am missing out on a lot of fun social events. :( Almost all desi concerts are organized on Saturday evenings (6pm onwards). Case in point - Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Asha Bhosle, Sukhwinder and so on in the past one month alone. Then, in our friend circle (with spring/summer approaching), most activities - park visits, hikes, bike trips etc, are being planned on Saturday mornings. I am gone all day Saturday and therefore not only I am affected, my family has to adjust to this changed reality as well. Well, I am 1/3 done... so hopefully, I will get my life back soon. :)

For some reason, I feel that there is so much to do and so little time. Its always a race against time. I plan on changing that sooner rather than later.

A little fun...

Came home from work last evening. It has been raining on and off yesterday. Evening it was cloudy and a little chilly. Worked with Nalin on his test prep (evaporation, condensation...). Poor guy wanted to go out and play. :) By the time we went out, the neighborhood kids had gone to their homes.

Suddenly an idea struck me... I pulled out the kites that had been sitting in the garage ever since we bought them several years ago. The weather was perfect - a little bit of wind. :) Soon, the kites were up in the air and Shruti and Nalin were having fun flying their own kites. Our new neighbors also came outside. Fortunately we had a third kite (my kids were in no mood to share) and the neighbors had some fun too. This was one spontaneous fun idea. :)

catching up

So many thing happening around me and involving me, that sometimes I feel dizzy. :) First of all there is work pressure all the time. Second is the school pressure. The family tries to be least demanding on my time but even that adds up. All this is enough to drive any sane person crazy, but aside from this I am involved in several (optional) extracurricular activities. For instance

- I joined TIE and participate actively in their events. They are really awesome and a lot of useful networking as well as learning happens at these events. I am building some good contacts here.

- Another DoJ being organized by me. Today in the afternoon, we will be visiting a local solar power company campus and interacting with their top execs. Its quite interesting how I pulled it off (not knowing anyone at that company).

- A couple of conferences coming up and I have signed up for one of them but not sure if I have the bandwidth to attend the second one.

There is other stuff happening in the background which I will reveal at a more opportune time. But definitely, since joining the program, I am sensing some positive undercurrents which can point only to a more positive future. :)

SoCal trip

Decided to take a couple of days off from work and take a min-vacation to so-cal. We left wednesday night and stayed overnight close to Magic Mountain. It was a good decision since the next day we got ready and headed straight to Disneyland. Oh boy... does it get crowded or what. We are talking Thursday and the first ride we took (Indi Jones), we had to wait an hour. Fortunately, weather this time of the year is awesome. It wasn't cold and it wasn't hot. Everyone had a great time. Later that night, after the fireworks, we asked the kids - "who wants to go on more rides" and both said "Me!!!" :) But they were really tired out. So, we decided to head back to the Hotel.

Next day, I took everyone to my campus and we spent some good time out there. Fortunately there were very few classes going on and hence we didn't disturb people too much. Later we went to the Santa Monica Beach. A very cool sunset and dinner at "Nawab of India" before we called it a night.

Saturday, I dropped of wife and kids at Universal and headed over to my school for first day of classes. I just managed to reach on time. :) Had a lunch with my new study group - awesome peeps.

Sunday we headed home. It was a nice trip and we took plenty of snaps for memory sake. Some day, they will be downloaded on to the computer.

For now, its back to the daily grind.