It is Painful

I don't know how many of you are following the fate of Jill Carroll, the kidnapped freelance journalist in Iraq, who mainly worked for the Christian Science Monitor. I am personally feeling very anguished. For some reason I feel a strange connection,and I'm trying to figure out why I feel so torn. If I explore my thoughts, then I think the main reason is the fear I get when extrapolating Priya's life. I mean, as parents you try to raise your daughter with the idea that nothing is impossible for her. That whatever goal she sets her eyes on, she can achieve it. If you don't give that sense of expectation, then you may as well raise her to believe that at 17 she will be given off in marriage to raise children for the rest of her life. Not that there is anything wrong in it, but you know what I mean. So here's Jill Carroll - trying to be a world-class journalist in the middle of a conflict with no rules. A woman in a world where women are considered "properties". Doing what she wanted to - set her heart to. Surviving in a mans world. Kidnapped at gunpoint by ruthless men who shot dead her interpreter. Used as a pawn in a senseless war. That land is soaked in blood, and it's thirst is not quenched. With all my heart I hope she is able to go free with her life. This is one death I won't be able to forget too easily.

Random Friday Thoughts

• So I guess I'm talking in my sleep again - last night I was encouraging Priya to walk towards me. I go through periods where I talk a lot in my sleep. You can even ask me questions and I will answer back. Tish hates it when I talk in Hindi though - then she can never figure out what I am talking about.
• So does eHarmony really work? I've been encouraging a friend of mine recently to sign up, but I'm skeptical of my own advise. I mean sure - there are lots and lots of desperate guys out there (I should know... hehe). But, are there as many desperate women? 'Cause then the cool guys will still get the girl, while us nerds get left behind - so to speak. Maybe desperate is not the right word either... I don't know.. What's a good word for it?
• I wonder how much the child tax credit is? This will be the first time that I will be filing taxes with a dependant child, and I'm curious as to the effect on my tax liability. By the way, I have filed taxes through eSmartTax for the last couple of years. This year, if you file before 2/15/06, the federal eFile is free. What a deal. Actually, every year I look for ways to eFile for free.
• Tax time always makes me think of how much we depend on money. For almost the entire month of January I go around with Abba humming "Money, money, money.. Always sunny.. In the rich mans world".
• I also realize how God has blessed us incredibly - I am undeserving of it all.
  

Some pictures

I don't know how many of you check out the Yahoo! picture page consistently, so for your viewing pleasure, here are some pictures of Priya.

The last one is of us at my office holiday party held in January (well, it's cheaper that way). It's nice to get out once in a while!

300 caps? Wow!

On January 18th, Kristine Lilly became the first person (that means male or female) to play in 300 international games in soccer (representing the US). She did it in style - she had a goal and an assist. This number is ridiculously insane. To put in perspective, the record for men's appearances is 173. Kristine started playing when she was 16, and now at 35 is still going strong.

Yay for women's sports.

An expensive toy?

I have to admit it - I am a gadget freak. I'm not as bad as I used to be. I think it's because our discretionary income has gone down with Tish not working, so I restrain myself more. Otherwise, I'd be the poster child of someone having anything that requires batteries to run.

So what happened was that we went to Michigan over the weekend and I got a couple of belated Christmas gifts - cash. It was enough that I was tempted towards the one thing I'd been eyeing, but not considering. Until now. Yep. Within two hours of my having cash in my pocket, I was at Best Buy getting the 5th generation iPod - the 30GB video one. I already have a 1GB MP3 player, so the only reason I was wanting this thing was for the videos.

So I've had it now for a few days, and I have to say it's got some great points, and some not so great points. Memory is virtually limitless - I downloaded a couple of DVDs to it, and they were about 600MB each. The biggest problem is battery life. When playing MP3s, it's no issue - 10 hours or so. But playing video... So far I'm seeing that it's no better than 45-50 minutes before it needs a charge.

As a toy, it's pretty cool. I just don't know if I should keep it. Any votes?

Falling for "chain" blogs

Were you the kind of person that believed if you passed on an email to a million other people within 2 seconds of getting it, your true love would kiss you? Or that someone was dying of horrible skin disease and Microsoft had pledged to pay for their cure if they could get a zillion emails going around the world so that they could track them? You know what I mean. If you were, you probably stopped copying me a long time ago, because most "chain" things died with me.

So now Michelle 'tags' me in her blog, and I have to write five random things about me. On top of that, I believe the idea is to send this to other people so that they also do the same. OK. I've given you a fair warning - this was something Michelle didn't do. If you don't want to find your name at the bottom of this list, click away and come back next week when there's another entry. Don't tell me later that I didn't warn you. Hehe.

OK. Five random things about me. By the way, 10 points each if you knew this about me. The person with the most points gets a surprise gift!

1. My middle name is "Harold" after my dearly departed grandfather.
2. I am a rocket scientist - though I've never even been close to a rocket.
3. In high school, I came third in every event I would took part in: 200m, 400m, long jump, high jump.
4. I have the genes (which not every one has) to both metabolize white asparagus, and to smell the after-effects of it. Not very pleasant, I can assure you. Lucky you if you don't have the smelling gene.
5. I was a week away from joining the merchant marines as a deck cadet, and spending the rest of my life on a ship. God had other plans. He wanted to make me a rocketless rocket scientist.

Ok. Now it's my turn. I hereby tag Lisa, Josh, Rebecca, and Alicia.

Time passes unequally

One thing that I think of often is how 2000 was a defining year for the apparent motion of time. I mean, it took forever for 2000 to get there. I remember thinking in the mid-90s how exciting it would be to use dates like '00 or '02 and so on. Then starting in 1998 the whole Y2K scare started. The following two years seemed soooo long with all the predictions of world chaos. Then we breathlessly waited at 11:59p on 12/31/1999. Two minutes later, the apparent motion of time accelerated. We are six years past 2000! I find it unbelievable. I mean, so much has happened in between. But still - to me it seems like these six years sped by way more quickly this side of the millenium.

What I don't have any idea on is whether this is only apparent to me (having also crossed my 30th birthday in these last six years). Or do some others also share this strange phenomena of physics?