7 types of people

I heard this from an elderly man who was giving a speech, the way he had explaied...I cannot replicate. I can only give you a gist of what was said and things that I am able to recall. Hopefully the message he was trying to pass, I can pass it on to you.

He was talking about the seven types of people who will have the hand of God protecting them from the intense heat that will engulf us during the last days. May we strive to be atleast one of the seven so that we can get his blessings and protection as well.

One who is a just ruler...a good head of government, a good leader, a good head of household : provider

One who takes advantage of his/her Youth to give himself to God

One who yearns to go back to masjid - place of prayer once he finishes one

One who gives and gives without concern to all the worldly things

One who loves someone for the sake of God

One who doesnt give into temptations of evil

One who realizes how much he or she is lucky to have these everyday things in life..his body, eyes, flowers, sun, moon, friends, family and everything else around.

India...here they come

After 7 years, Mom and sis have gone back to India accompanied by Dad. Leaving me all alone here. Here....NYC, where night thrives on single people . It needs people like me who dont have anywhere to go after hours. That might seem like a good thing right now but believe me before they come back I will be missing them like anything.

I am a people person and I need people with me all the time even if it seems that I am shy and mysterious and by myself most of the time.

Reload and Reboot

I have been so busy lately at home. So much is going on in the personal side of life, that I have somehow ignored the online part. Though I am still online and read up on things, havent had the chance to sit and write this blog.

So what has been taking up my time, small things at home. Ikea shopping, assembling the stuff that we got from there. I like ikea.. (they look soo similar), and we have almost transformed our living room into somewhat of a modern place with the installations of some new furniture for our TV. The thing that sometimes bothers me is that, this stuff that we get from Ikea, they only come with the exact things that are needed to make the stuff. Not one more or one less, if you somehow loose a nail or a screw... well you are screwed.. haha. but jokes aside, they should atleast give a few extra just in case. Do they expect everyone to be perfect?

Realites

We all talk about doing new things, new adventures to take on, new boundries to visit, leap a tall building, run faster than a speeding bullet..... Are they all just talk?

We love dreaming of such things, a grand plan in the making. Only some of us carry out that plan and achieve something, others are quite satisfied of where they are.

So what if I cant leap a tall building, I can take the stairs to reach the same place. If that's a little slow, well we have elavators for that. Right? Its the reality of the situation, a situation that we are in during our lives that inspires us and pushes us to do new things. Where do we get these inspirations from??

How come we keep recreating the same realities for ourselves, we know that we have so many options available for us, but we keep coming back to the same shell of our lives, just in different colors. We have so much potential but never fully understand and characterize it. We are so conditioned to our daily lives, so conditioned that the way we create our lives that we buy the idea that we have no options at all.

We do have options, we need to break out of our molds, disconnect outselves from the matrix, look beyond the yellow brick road for answers.

Journey of vanity

I was in the train coming back home from work on friday, and there was a lady who started doing her makeup from 5th avenue.. and she kept on putting it, on with one box and the next, some small patch here and a touch there. Then another small box with many different colors and mirrors galore, the boxes were coming out of her bag like rabbits being pulled out of the hat.
So many different color boxes and they were literally being plucked out by their ears from inside that small bag. The half of the train box which could see this magic show was amazed. Some were drifting their eyes back and forth from the words on their books to the slight curve of this lady. A show was being preformed and no one on the train had a ticket to see but was willing to sneak a peak here and there.
While there was another lady sitting right beside where the show was taking place, with no makeup on and she looked tired from her work. She was catching a blinks of sleep here and there while the train labored passed the stations dropping off and picking up people along the way.
Two contrasting people, right beside each other, one coming back from work and one might be just starting the day. The queens bound number 7 train, an array of people with an rainbow of personality.
End of journey.. flushing main street station. The show was over, everyone rushed to the exits. No one cared for an encore presentation, the star of the show was left behind, still finishing up her makeup. The lady next to her who was on her way to the exit looked back and smiled, and knew that even without all that makeup, her life is more satisfying and that made her beautiful.

Shopping Spree

Presidents day weekend, and all we can think of is shopping. Well shopping was on our minds for a while now, not for us, but for the apartment. We have to replace the old style cabinets, the small old TV and Sofas, fridge, all kinds of stuff.

So off we went to look for some stuff, just look. Stuff we looked at were really expensive, but very enticing. went to sears, circuit city, macys, target.. then finally pc richards.

Ordered a flat screen plasma tv. This one: Samsung SP-P4251 42" EDTV Plasma Television
looks good no?

We didnt want to spent that much on it.. but it seemed like it was worth it at the time when we were looking at the TV with admiration and just like.. oh wondering... hmm how would it look like in our living room. :-) so with much consideration, we gave into the ID in all of us and took that TV.

That was my long weekend.
And oh, I have to start thinking of future, start thinking of all my responsibilities.

Time passes by fast - as life continues

Monday was good,
Tuesday was fine,
Wednesday was Not that bad,
Thursday was fun - especially lunch with Rumana,
Friday was longer than usual,
Saturday was no basketball,
Sunday was superbowl......

Pats won the Superbowl again, wanted eagles to win it, just becuz I didnt want to see New England (Boston) win the Superbowl as well as the World Series in baseball.

Been trying to go to gym every week...atleast twice a week, since I dont have much to do anyway after work.

As you can see random thoughts are filled in my head today. The weekend is ending but I feel like I need some rest from this daily grind thats almost becoming a habit. I need to find something to do other than everyday work and coming back home and just the same routine.

Maybe I need to start doing something regarding my work, start a training, do something new.

Lets see what next weekend brings.

Card Anyone?

Green Card that is....well finally Mom, Dad and Sis will be getting theirs. :-) I, on the other will have to wait a while before I can get mine. Its the cost of being older than 21 years of age when dad applied for it. So now its all up to me to get mine, it will take some time, time is what I have not much of these days.

Seems just like two days ago that I sat down to write the last entry of the blog, and its been whole 7 days. Atleast this writing is making me think back and realize the time that have been spent in those 7 days. Usually when someone asks, "What did you do this week or weekend?" I will say, "oh not much just did nothing." This writing is actually changing that, it makes me put down thoughts

So now with this card, its time to take a much needed vacation for mom and dad. I think vacation aside, its time to go back to india and visit relatives, visit memories, visit graves. I think now mom can start shopping for the trip, getting things for the people back home. We have to buy things for almost everyone we know....everything we get from here is actually made back in India or China, but they still love that we bring it from here.

Snow storm NYC

The first snow storm of NYC.
It has kept me hibernated inside the apartment for two straight days, no basketball, no going out, nothing. Just practically confined to my room.

So I took out my camera and thought I will take some pics of people who are braver than me to actually get outside in the snow.

Snow storm NYC

How come we get used to snow so much that we sometimes loose the beauty of it.

Nature can be beautiful, nature can be cruel as well. The affects of Tsunami is still being calculated, lives are being changed day by day. Hope you guys are doing something yourself. Some financial help, a prayer at night. Anything.

Eid

Its been two whole weeks since I have gotten a chance to write something. I have a chance tonight before this weekend comes to an end as well. The time just goes too fast, I cant believe we are almost the end of January. I wish I can hold on to the smallest moments forever, sometimes I do by taking pictures but its not like we can have a camera everywhere we go and have it with us when we are doing every single thing.

This friday was Eid, Eid-ul-Adha to be exact.

Eid-ul-Adha (the Festival of Sacrifice) is celebrated throughout the Muslim world as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim's (PBUH) willingness to sacrifice his son for Allah. Allah rewarded his willinging by sending in a ram(goat) to be sacrificied instead.

For the first time in 10 years, the time that we have been here in the US, we sent money back home(India) to give a goat as a sacrifice. This goat will be distributed to the poor and needy first, relatives second and then shared with family members.

I miss being back in India during these festive times. It would have been a big occasion and celebration. Here it was more subdued, went to masjid to pray in the morning, went to work. Went to work, how is that for a day of celebration. :-) But all in all, we are happy with how things are going, so we have to be thankful.

Changes

It has been a week in to the new year, and nothing much has changed.
So much will change.

Someone close to me will be getting married in December. :-) YaY
I will eventually know what i will doing and where i will be going before the middle of the year.
Contract with my current employer will be over and I will either be looking for an extension or trying to get away from the place totally.
I cant believe its been almost 3 years since I started doing internship at this place. 2 years of internship and 1 year as a consultant.
Yas (sis) will be turning the page on her teen years and will be moving on to Twenty...wow.
I am sure many other important things that I am not able to think right now.
Sometimes the changes occur and if you dont anticipate it, they just blend it and you dont even notice them happening.

Coming back to the topic of this post, changes....as for this weekend, the change was pretty much in the cell phone plans of dad and sis. mom became a newcomer to the cell phone market. Now it seems that even though she didnt pick her own phone, she probably has the best one out of them all. So now all of us have a cell phone, hmm....and they have the family plan. Not just that... they are going to be getting their green cards soon. They they they, hmm and I am all alone. Haha.. but we still have dinner together, mom's cooking is oh so nice(mother's love has no comparison), dad's thoughts, advices and view of the world, sis's ohhhh everything.... so that makes up for it all. :-)

A New Year

A welcoming of a new year is much needed. Hopefully it wil be a happy one. A safe one perhaps is a better way to put it.

For the past few years, the eve has been spent at the comfort of home with mom dad and sis. This year was no different, except the home was in someone's else place. A subdued new year was much needed, a time to pray and hope. Time to look back at things that had been happening in the world. Time to look back at things that happened withing myself, surrounding, people I affect.

I wont bore you with the detals of the changes, but in the coming entries i will be sure to go back myself and think through things. There is a lot one can learn by revisiting decisions made, choices that were picked, arguments that were necessary (uncessary perhaps) , people we loved, fell out of love. Some things we carry on, some leave behind.

Wishing you guys a Happy New Year.