The Trials and Tribulations of life as a Heather

Can you pass the chicken please?

Having put on more weight than I had intended when coming to India (too much creamy sauces, rice, naan, and paneer and not enough protein and exercise), I decided to try and shed some of those extra kilos.  I had lunch at the cafeteria on the Infosys campus yesterday. And as part of my new diet routine, I decided to try the salad instead of my usual Chinese food special (which is always the same thing every day - noodles, sweet and sour soup, and some kind of chicken masala).  There were two salad options: Veg and Non Veg.  I glanced over at the salad 'buffet' (everything's a buffet in India) and opted for the non-veg choice. I piled my salad bowl with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, a small service of pasta and was about to get some meat.  I looked at the meat selection and couldn't really tell what kind of meat was on display so I whispered to the Indian guy who was standing next to me and asked, 'Is that chicken?'.  There were three buckets of what looked to be meat. He said, 'Yeah, they're all chicken'.  I took a closer look at one of the buckets and said, 'But that looks like scrambled eggs sliced to look like chicken'. And he said, 'Oh, Yeah, the rest are chicken'. Looking a little puzzled, I reached for the bucket nearest me that wasn't egg but was supposed to be chicken.  I drizzled some olive oil, salt, and pepper on my salad and headed to the intern table to enjoy my salad.

I took a big bite out of my chicken and realized that what I had thought was chicken was really not chicken but tuna instead.  It didn't really look like tuna, but then again, it didn't really look like chicken.  Once I said, 'Hey, this isn't chicken', another intern said to me, 'Yeah, that's tuna'. I'm not a huge fan of shredded tuna so I picked around the tuna and ate as many vegetables as I could without touching the tuna.

I guess I probably shouldn't have asked the vegeterian guy what kind of meat was being served.

Me, A Bike, and an Indian Cab Driver

I got back from a lovely weekend in Goa this past weekend and had to make up for the half day I took on Friday so I went into the office on Sunday afternoon.  After about two hours of work, I decided that I needed some dinner, having not eaten since I had left Goa earlier that morning.

I decided to take a bike to building 8, about a 10 minute walk from my office in building 38. I got to Dominos Pizza, the only place open on the INFY campus on a weekend, and ordered myself a lovely cheese and BBQ chicken pizza.  After it was done cooking, I took the pizza and hopped on a bike to head back to building 38.

Indians, like the British, drive on the left side of the road.  This includes walking and biking as well. It took me about a week to adjust to this, but I managed.  So I was biking on the left side of the road and after turning, I saw a cab veering towards me - also on my side of the street (his right side of the road). I panicked, so I swerved right, as did he (his left).  He was about to hit me (maybe 5 meters away) when I swerved again and we missed each other.  I was too shaken up to start screaming at the guy.

I am not a natural bike rider, having barely ridden a bike since I was a kid.  So you can imagine my alarm as I tried to maneuver the bike away from the oncoming car. It turned out that the guy riding in the back of the cab, was another intern, Ostein, from Norway. 

Worst Flight Ever

I love to travel so airtravel is unavoidable.  Last Thursday I left Tokyo's Narita airport bound for Syracuse, NY via Chicago.  Unfortunately American Airlines didn't see it that way.  I got from Tokyo to Chicago in one piece, no problem.  Getting back to Ithaca, my final destination, proved to be a bit too much for any airline to handle.  While my luggage went through customs, bound for Syracuse, I, was unfortunatley not that lucky. 

My flight got cancelled in Chicago and I was given a discounted rate to the Doubletree in Arlington, Illinois (about an hour away from Chicago).  My flight was changed from destination Syracuse to destination Ithaca via La Guardia airport in NYC, this time, via US Airways. 

I arrived in Chicago the next day, jet lagged but ready to get on with my voyage home.  I waited around Chicago while my flight was delayed.  It finally took off, bound for LGA.  Upon my arrival in LGA on Friday afternoon, an hour late and passed the time my connecting flight was to take off for Ithaca, I learn that my Ithaca flight had been cancelled, at 9:30 pm.  Feeling tired and frustrated, I hailed a cab, still luggage-less and wearing the same polo shirt and jeans for two days. to my friend Brett's place in LES Manhattan.  I had planned to take the greyhound back the next day, Saturday, fearing another delay in air travel.  I spent the day running around Manhattan shopping for new clothes, getting my hair cut, and making plans with friends to see a movie and grab dinner. 

4:00 pm rolled around and I called the airport to see what the status was- if I could fly out the next day back to Ithaca instead of enduring 5.5 hour bus ride back to Ithaca.  US Airways got me on a flight at 6:20 bound for Ithaca from LGA.  I had to mss dinner and a movie with my friends but I finally got back to Ithaca at 8:00 pm- still without my luggage and all my souvenirs from Japan.  Hopefully the stuff will be delivered by van later today....

I am not 'SKETCHY'

I always thought of myself as being a rather curious person meaning, I like to research things until I find the answer to the problem or question I had in mind.  i pointed this trait out to my housemate, Will, and he keeps insisting that this is a sign of my sketchiness. 

An example:

So I checked out this guy's friendster website the other day because I was curious to see what he's been up to. I check out a lot of my old friend's websites to see what they've been up to.  At school we call this networking.  And yeah, I could've sent him an email and simply asked, but seeing that I haven't talked to him in about a year, a random email seemed a bit inappropriate and a quick peak at his friendster website seemed harmless.  Or so you would think.

So now friendster has this great feature of posting your picture on people's websites that you've visited.  And yeah, you can turn off this feature but then you can't see who has visited your website. (stupid that the on/off trigger works both ways) I relayed this story to Will and he said that this was definitely a sign of my sketchiness.  (I also have this habit of walking softly and appearing out of nowhere which I think adds to his perceived sketchiness of me because he thinks that I'm a lurker. 15 years of ballet training has taught me to be light on my feet...)  I think that being curious about people you used to know years ago is a sign of simply harmless curiousity and not sketchiness. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

What's Cookin' Hot Mama?

I came up with the brilliant idea to cook dinner for a few of my friends and their spouses/s.o this weekend.  The menu: a fabulous Vietnamese meal consisting of rice porridge, scallion sesame chicken, tofu, fried egg rolls, summer rolls, and white rice.  Sounds good, right? I've never cooked most of this stuff in my life so it should be interesting.  Best to hit McD's before dinner time...

One more week and then it's finals.  Heading home for break.  Ready to relax at the spa with my sister before heading out to the family ranch in Healdsburg- wine tasting anyone?  I'm around the 3rd weekend in October.  Meet me at Rabbit Ridge- i'll be the drunk one with red cheeks and a mouth full of cheese and crackers.

Finally figured out what a Nash Equilibrium is- my housemate would be so proud. Anybody wanting to do some game theory for fun, look me up and i'll be happy to smack you in the head as a reality check.

Tootles.

My oh my

It's been incredibly hectic since I arrived at Cornell.  I've been in school for only 3.5 weeks but already I have midterms next week.  The weather's starting to cool down and the leaves are starting to change.

I have done the inevitable though I never thought a month ago I would be doing this- I'm learning how to play golf.  Yesterday I played my first 18 holes with a recruitter from Price Waterhouse Cooper.  And boy did I stink.  I have no idea how to hit the ball off the tee- most of my balls just rolled down about 10 feet in front of the little wooden thing.  But i've been taking lessons and have a decent chip shot and pitch shot.  Problem is, they only show themselves about 50% of the time.  I was able to sink two puts from about 10 feet away for par so that was pretty cool.  Don't think I'll be working for PWC this summer though.

My housemates are pretty cool.  Will, a graduate stats student, lives on the first floor.  He's another Californian though he's from the O.C.  Seems to be incredibly smart but has a bit of an ego. Rafael is a first year law student from Puerto Rico.  I always thought 1st year law students were studious but he's quite the partier on the weekends.

I thought my workload would be more mellow once I started school but I find myself working at least 12 hour days between classes, team meetings, and looking for a summer job. It's pretty crazy but exhilirating as well.  The constant immersion in work will definitely make the next two years go by pretty quickly.

Sorry that this blog isn't as humorous as my other ones.  Just wanted to give an update.  Hope every one's doing well.

Ithaca, here I come!

After applying to three schools for graduate school, I was rejected to one, accepted to one, and waitlisted at another.  I was planning to work another year and apply again but then I got this phone call from the International Admissions Office at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management asking me if I would like to join the class of '07.  Apparently I was being called off the waitlist.  Needless to say, I accpeted their offer last Friday 7/29 and am now busy packing my belongings to move to Ithaca, NY next weekend as Orientation starts 8/8/05.  I'm still bewildered and mulling over my decision but I think it's the right one. 

So now I need to find a place to live which Gligor has been so nice in helping me with as well as figure out the whole student loan situation.  I had luckily filled out the FAFSA form so I figure I must qualify for something.  Once all that's settled I can focus on picking classes, catching up on summer reading, and saying goodbye to friends and family yet again.  It's only for two years though and hopefully i'll be better for it in the end.  I'm still in disbelief.  I told my boss an hour after I accepted and am still trying to write my official resignation letter.  So much to do, so little time....

Me v. Killer Mosquito

The weather's starting to heat up here in San Francisco and my apartment, nice as it is, doesn't have a/c.  So last night I decided to open the door to my terrace as well as the windows in the living room to let the bay breeze in. I went to bed at about 9:45pm and was awoken by what I thought was a dream of me getting pricked by a needle but when I opened my eyes I heard a buzzing sound- the tell tell sign of a mosquito. I looked down at my thumb and, sure enough, saw a new, throbbing insect bite. Severly allergic to insect bites, I turned on my bedroom light and saw a small mosquito on the wall.

I threw a shoe at it and missed. It darted to the left. I threw another shoe and missed again.  I saw it fly away.  I closed the glass door to my terrace and shut the blinds along the window. I took a benadryl in hopes of lessening any adverse reaction to the bite. I pulled my sheet tightly around my body, which, at this point, was starting to throb from the mosquito venom and turned off the light.  I slept for about 20 minutes when once again I heard the buzzing sound. I quickly sat up, turned on the light and saw the mosquito on the wall above my head.

I threw a shoe at it and missed. I threw another shoe at it as it flew to the glass door.  I saw it fly around the room. I threw off the sheets, ran out of my room, closed my bedroom door and went into the living room to try and get some sleep on the couch. By now it was 12:30 and I had to be up in 5 hours.  I tossed and turned and cursed the mosquito for making me sleep on my less comfortable couch.  Finally I went back to my bedroom.  I laid back down on the bed after scanning the room for signs of the pesky intruder. After 20 minutes I turned off the light and went back to sleep. I woke up every half hour or hour to check around for the mosquito. By 3:30 am, I was still awake.  I finally succombed to sleep until 5:30 when I had to get up for work.

Needless to say, I plan to get some mosquito repelling candles at Walgreens afterwork.

A day at the dentist

After having not seen a dentist in over a year, (due
to my move from the east to the west and the change in
my insurance) I went in for a check up a few weeks
ago. And lo and behold I had a cavity. (A first in
many years).

Being extremely fearful of drills, needles and
dentists, I opted to pay $25 extra for some N2O and
after one deep breathe, I was quickly overcome with
the wonderful feeling of euphoria and giddiness that
comes with those extra nitrogen atoms.  And to top
it off, the hygentist laid me on a chair with a back
massager.

I must say, dental procedures have come a long way
since my first cavity many moons ago. Though it's not
an experience I'd like to repeat, the lulling, gentle
vibrations of my back massage coupled with the
soothing, happy feeling brought on by the happy gas,
made it a more pleasant one.

splish splash

Guilted by a few friends of mine, who are all in training for various triathalons, I decided to give swimming a try.  I didn't learn how to swim until I was 13 when my mom enrolled the two of us for swimming lessons at the local public high school.  She took the beginning adult course and I took the beginning children's course. I nearly drowned that summer when the instructor forced us to all tread water in the big pool for 2 minutes. I got about 1 minute of treading before I started to sink and my head started to slip under the water. The instructor was about to dive in when I somehow got myself onto my back and floated towards the edge of the pool.  After that incident, my swimming lessons ceased.

Now, over a decade later, I've decided to brace the mockery of the 80 year olds who swim at the local Y daily, and have done so every day of their lives, to join them in their swimming brigade, two lanes over in what is known as the slow lane.  I donned my suit and hopped into the 4 foot deep water, slightly warmed by the few bodies swimming beside me- a Japanese man who looked to be in his late fourties, and a young woman in her 30s who eventually moved to the medium lane.

Four laps later (100m) I hopped out of the pool, exhausted but triumphant. I had managed to freestyle my way back into the swimming world (with a few breaks and a few restful backstrokes in between) where I hope to stay for the next few years (or until my trial membership expires in 39 days).