Sumaiyya is putting CACA in her hair. Sorry I had to share.

i've got my iphone hooked up to my blog again now so now posting images to my blog is as easy as snap and send. woohoo. that means you'll be seeing a lot of useless images in the near future. aren't you excited? i haven't figured out how to add captions either so in addition to being useless, the pictures will have absolutely no context. lucky you. i wish i could read blogs like mine.

so what do you do when you have 8 lbs of cherries? you make cherry everything. cherry ice cream is where we started. it's a pretty simple recipe that is essentially vanilla ice cream with cherry puree mixed in. for the added cherry kick we cut up cherries into chunks and threw them in on top. we've sampled but not truly tasted the final product. it's in the freezer waiting for a "dessert party" next wednesday. yes, you read right. you can comment and make fun of me. i will be attending a "dessert party" and that too on a wednesday.

today was a step forward for me in a way that many of you may see as being negligible. i admit, before today, i probably felt the same way. over the past few weeks i've been researching cars. i was looking for a car that would bring back what i was missing with my civic - small, zippy, fun. i also wanted to venture out of my comfort zone and get a manual transmission car. for so long, i've been living in the comfortable world of automatic transmissions. 3 pedals? you crazy? it should be as simple as gas and brake, gas and brake, gas and brake. where'd the haddi in the kabob come in - clutch. but lately, it's become more and more intriguing - not so much because of the transmission itself but because of the challenge. it's a challenge which i've been shying away from for years - so at a time when i've been losing motivation elsewhere - why not pick up something to get me going again?

anyhow, i bought a car on saturday. sunday, my cousin naheed took me out for some lessons. it was a hellish experience filled with speed bumps, starting and stopping, stalling, and all the goodness you can imagine. in the end, naheed made me drive home. not nice. it built my confidence and allowed me to get to a point where i was comfortable with the gears and somewhat with the clutch.

there's an interesting similarity (get ready for some deepness) between driving stick and living life: getting into first gear is the hardest. once you're rolling, it's pretty much butter. taking the analogy a step further - you gotta know how much to release the clutch and how much to push the gas; timing is essential. you may be doing all the right things but at the wrong time they won't do you no good and at best you'll stall. at worst, you may grind your gears and end up really hurting yourself. have confidence, don't care about the jerk behind you honking in his ford f-150, and take your time to get things right. once you get the hang of it, things will go a lot more smoothly. taking an analogy from my commute to work this morning - choose your path wisely. it could be the key to your success. figure out what the tell-tale signs of failure are and avoid them at all costs (sharp turns, places where you'll have to slow to a halt and restart from 1st gear, lots of stop and go traffic).

time for some rest. talk again soon.

1000 words a day. 

ok that was odd. i was writing 1000 words a day in my title and i looked to my right and saw someone writing it on a whiteboard. freaky. maybe it's a sign!

anyhow, i'm finishing up an audio cd set about educating your child in the west. one of the things it encourages is to build consistency in reading, writing, and speaking. expressing yourself effectively is a skill that can open many doors in life and help you to progress in your goals.

my 1000 words a day will be about anything and everything. don't mind my rambling - John Taylor Gatto told me that it doesn't matter how i write. i should be simple and just get my thoughts out. i don't need to have fancy schmancy words like "rambling".

when i was a kid i used to watch doogie howser md. remember that show? well, at the end he would reflect on his day in a journal that he kept on his computer. come on, honestly - you know you've tried to do the same. i've tried and consistently been inconsistent. i think it's the need to write something interesting that stops me from writing. the truth is that i barely have anything profound to say - i have to learn to love thinking out loud and maybe then something profound will develop. nawhatimsayin?

a friend of mine started a website called giveme27.com. it's a mashup of a bunch of google products used to track how many pushups you do every day. it's simple but oddly motivational. oh - what? no. it hasn't gotten me to do any pushups yet but i'm sure i'll try it out sometime. there's a forum where you can discuss your love for said exercise method with like-minded individuals. i'm not sure how much i can talk about pushups but eh.

i'm working on a new project at work that has me pretty stoked. in case you haven't heard that word before it's because normal people don't use it. it's a california term i guess. i didn't want to use it. i swear. it just happened. any way i'm pretty stoked about this new project. i'm finding myself networking well with folks outside of research to make myself and them useful resources for the company. we're "cross-pollinating" ideas and having a good time. it also taps into personal interests and the experience i gained while i was in india. fun fun. (413 words in case you were counting).

taking a break. be back in a few.

we learned morphology in arabic class today. morphology is a study of the structure of words. in arabic, words are formed (mostly) from three letter roots. it's amazing to see how scientific the language is. to an engineer, i'm sure the rules just make sense. i can't wait to be fluent. ah, another asipration of mine is to learn arabic calligraphy. do you know any calligraphy teachers in northern california? if so, please let me know. i'd love to learn.

biggest lesson learned today: work on effective communication skills - you never know how or when you'll need them. today, we had an "all hands" meeting for the user experience team. it was motivating to see so many people from our group who are skilled presenters - orally and visually. humor, class, technique, style, and a strong understanding of their area of focus helped these guys and girls impress the audience and convey their thoughts with ease. hopefully as i express myself more i'll be able to speak with the same confidence.

well, that's all folks. time for me to call it a night. i may/may not start posting notes on facebook rather than my blog - it allows me to share with only people who i know. i'm starting to get a bit wierded out by knowing that anyone could be reading t h i s   r  i  g  h  t   n    o     w.

g'nite.

So when I was a kid I had two favorite movies: Naseeb and Mahaan - both Amitabh Bachchan classics. It's amazing the emotion that was in these movies that I simply overlooked as a kid. To me, it was all about the fighting scenes and the comedy sequences. The song below is actually sung by Amitabh in his own voice. A bit dramatic, but have a little patience - it's a great song.

we're back. we arrived back in san francisco on the 21st of february. and so comes to an end an amazing chapter in our lives. more to come.

As our time here in India winds down, Sumaiyya and I have come out to Darjeeling to enjoy the winter holidays. We've found it very comforting in these hills, with little to do, to take time to reflect on the amazing graces that God has showered on us - enabling us to travel extensively throughout the past year. We've seen so much history, culture, color, life, and more that we'll never forget. In our minds, India will never be the same. Long gone is the time when we thought of India as a 2 month fun filled summer vacation destination. Many of the things that bothered me about India and Indians back then I understand now. I realize why Indians are the way we are. I understand their needs and happiness more thoroughly. I have been lucky enough to explore these needs both in my personal as well as professional time.

In addition to learning about the general Indian public, I've also had the opportunity to learn about how Indians work. Don't get me wrong - Google is Google and anyone who has seen the Bangalore office can attest to that. The culture is very similar yet there are certain cultural nuances which give the office its own flavor. I won't discuss those here because some of them may be corporate identity observations. Suffice it to say, I'll never be the same after working with the people I've worked with in Bangalore. 

Many of my posts early on were humorous in nature. A few detailed gripes that I faced day to day. I stopped writing a few months into my stay. Looking back, I realize that I stopped writing when everything became routine - when I felt normal living in Bangalore. I didn't take time to reflect on my travels in words as the pictures I took (or Sumaiyya took) really did speak those thousand plus words. There's a story behind each of those pictures that I would love to sit and tell you. Many of them will be "toothbrush" stories - the family knows what those are - but many of them could be stimuli for great discussions. 

As I sit here in Darjeeling, in this wood walled hotel room, I can't help but wonder what life would have been like - what would I have been like - if I had decided to scrap my Bangalore plans a year back. What would I be doing right now? What would I have to reflect on? I thank God for giving us this wonderful opportunity and I know that in a year, in five years, in ten, and God willing beyond, I'll look back on this blogpost and remember how I was feeling while writing it. I pray that all of you are happy and well. God willing I'll be seeing you soon.