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A new spring every week!

To be amused by what you read--that is the great spring of happy quotations.

I am a great fan of quotes, in fact I read at least 5 new quotes every day. Here are some that reflect my mood today:

[Spring is] when life's alive in everything.

Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

Susan J. Bissonette

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.

Pearl Buck (1892 - 1973)

So why was today a good day? I was down the last few days and nothing would get me out of it. The recurring flu was not helping my cause. This down syndrome has been hitting me again and again; it has been relapsing shall I say? But I am an optimist, every time it hits me I start building my web again akin to the undefeated spider. This week I hoped and looked out for small things to rock my boat. Another quote coming your way:

I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

On Monday, I found pleasure in working hard at the office and enjoying my favorite TV shows, thats a simple life.

Tuesday, I went down to the office cafe twice but both times I could not find anything appealing to eat so I decided to not give up on my desire for good food. I waited till I finished an assignment I was focused on till 3 pm, left work with no idea of what I wanted to eat. Randomly, I went to the Prolific Oven bakery and viola I tried something new - a Mexi-Chicken panini and boy was it good. It felt like Beethoven's symphony as I gorged on the mesquite chicken, the fresh avocado and the savory grilled peppers. The side salad was no less. I felt deja vu. Waiting for the right lunch and then finding supreme delight in it felt real.

Today, a series of fortunate events made me a super happy person and it was a new spring in my life all over again :)
- The project at work that had made Friday and Monday busy and yesterday uncertain today was all of sudden in green. Hooray!
- An hour at my favorite Toastmasters club was super fun.
- The soup at the cafe was so good, I bought 2 cups of it :) I even recommended it to 5 different coworkers. It was called Garden Vegetable Minestrone but it was so spicy I am sure it had some Thai or Indian herbs.
- I have been planning for my marathon spree since weeks and the inaction was killing me. The plan is not to build stamina for a marthon and then throw it all away like 2006. For 2007, I am planning a 6 month series full of a 5k, 10k, half marathon and then marathon. Once I get to the full marathon, I get to blow some steam and then start the same cycle again. I get to achieve 3 cool things: maintain stamina, keep fit year round and see new places that I go to run at. This is a good plan, all it needs is good execution. I kickstarted the preparation today: 1 hour of pilates followed by 3 rounds of Moitozo park. 1.5 miles in 20-25 minutes is not good at all but today is day one, so anything goes!
- As I walked home tired, I checked the mailbox and there it was - my graded paper on "The private diaries of Agrippina". This was the final paper I wrote under excruciating personal circumstances for my literature class on Roman emperor Nero and the three women he loved and killed.

All these very silly events just made my day. God is indeed as Ms. Arundhati Roy has famously cited in small things!

What a day! One must wonder how down I must have been to really feel so happy!

Feminism brings benefits to all -- men included

What can I say, I agree completely!

Published By Neil Chethik at http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16517033.htm

On Tuesday, for the first time in American history, a woman will take a seat behind the president of the United States as he delivers his State of the Union address. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will be elbow-to-elbow with Vice President Cheney during the speech, described her rise to speaker earlier this month as a great victory ``for our daughters and granddaughters.''

It's a victory for our sons and grandsons as well. That's because when feminists succeed, men tend to benefit, too. Indeed, I've been one of those beneficiaries myself.

Born in the 1950s, I have my roots in the era of ``Father Knows Best.'' In those pre-feminist days, men dominated in the political arena, ran virtually all of the businesses, and controlled -- at least legally -- much of went on in the home. Indeed, in some states, a husband had the right to strike his wife if she got out of line.

But as I came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I stepped into a fresh, feminist world. Women were marching for legal rights; they were competing with men in the education and work worlds. In 1972, my own mother entered the workforce (after raising four children) to begin what would become a 25-year professional career.

At that time, many of our national leaders warned that as women gained, men would lose. But the opposite actually occurred. As women's options grew, so did men's.

I noticed this first in college as I contemplated my future work life. Feminism freed me from the expectation that I would be the primary wage-earner in my family. Where I had once considered a career based largely on how much money I would earn, now I could ask myself: What do I really want to do?

Thus, my interest in going to law school vanished; my passion for writing took precedence. I entered a profession that I still enjoy today.

Feminism also benefited me in my relationships with women. The women I dated in college and afterward no longer looked at me as a ``success object'' -- someone who would provide for them. They were strong and motivated enough to take care of themselves. They sought careers and adventure, and a man who would be an equal partner. Thus, I had the luxury of dating, and eventually marrying, a woman whose full potential was not curtailed by society's limitations.

After I married, my options continued to expand. With my wife sharing the responsibility of earning our family income, I had the opportunity to share in raising our son. In his earliest years, I stayed home with my son every morning before handing him over to my wife in the afternoons.

Later, when he started school, I was the one who met him as he came off the bus at the end of the school day. My wife treated me as a parental equal. Our relationships allowed me the flexibility to coach my son's baseball teams, attend his band performances and visit his classrooms to meet his friends and teachers.

My own father has lamented to me that he didn't have as close a relationship with his children as he would have liked. Whatever regrets I have in raising my son, a lack of time with him will not be one of them.

Indeed, I'll be sitting next to my now 13-year-old son on Tuesday when the president stands to deliver his State of the Union address. I'll point to Pelosi and remind him that this is a historic day. Her rise to third-in-line to the presidency, I'll tell him, is an indication not only that girls and women can achieve their dreams, but that boys and men can do the same.

NEIL CHETHIK is writer-in-residence at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Ky. He also is the author of VoiceMale (Simon & Schuster). He wrote this article for the Mercury News.

Inspiring Cancer Story on Dr Phil

This woman's story is absolutely heartwarming.

http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/3465/?id=3465&null=null

Oh My God....Bollywood Maniacs Bury Me :)

I don't know whether I should be happy about this or sad or just outright mad!

I have this quaint silly blog that I write for fun..Its a funky old blog that no one reads! And I like it that way :) http://cynicalthinker.blogspot.com/

Well I just had 600 visitors because some idiot or a computerized crawler posted my silliest and most random rantings on a popular Hindi music site!
http://www.indiafm.com/features/2007/01/15/2091/index.html
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :)

Outcome:
See View My Stats under My Links on the right menu bar...

I hope no more craziness comes out of this topic..I m off to work meetings!