Thinking out of the box

I remember how excited I was in class 5, when my drawing teacher asked us to draw and paint a parrot. I was very excited and drew the parrot sitting on a branch with some leaves. And to avoid too much "green" on the page, had painted the leaves "red". I was given a B grade saying the colours weren't right. Wish I had the knowledge then to tell my teacher that leaves could be red, and shown him in 1990 the autumn colours you get to see in the US. So ended up with a B grade for "thinking out of the box".

As a software engineer, you get to attend hordes of meetings to solve "issues" (which never seem to end). And the words you would hear the most are again "Think out of the box solutions. Think different". After having successfully killed the creative spirits in a human being when you were a child, here you are being forced to bring back those skills to save your job and earn a living. Wouldn't it be better if those "skills" weren't killed, but nurtured? This week watched a lovely Hindi movie titled "Taare zameen par" followed by an article by a school principal. Wish man knew how to understand himself and hone his skills better.........

I miss those days, when learning was fun and less competition. I remember the standard statement from my dad when I would be a little dull (more often than not) with the progress report in my hand and standing in front of him waiting for his signature, "It doesn't matter to me if you get 100 or fail in a subject. If you have understood the matter...that is all I ask for." Those were the days of "Speak n Math" and "Speak n Spell". And now its mostly PS3, Nintendo n the lot. Its about competition, who scores more. Who becomes a doctor or an engineer and who ends up becoming a teacher in a school!!!! Only wish, the brightest and the best of this generation can do some bit of teaching in their lifetime to help the next generation atleast be kids when they ought to be and better citizens when they grow up.

First Night

Shocked and surprised at the heading for my latest post?? "What on earth is Maddy planning to write in this?" "He is supposed to write about his trips and the wonderful places he sees and not talk about his personal life". This is the name of the festivities that I have seen for the New Year's this time. Its the festivities welcoming the "First night of the new year" in a place called Saratoga Springs, NY, about 40 mins drive from Albany.

Having missed her wedding earlier this year, I thought of spending time with my cousin and her hubby in her hamlet in Albany during the year end vacation time. Thought 1st Jan was a holiday. And I ended up "working from home" as it wasn't :-( . This trip started on a bad note....think my worst time with the airlines in America. Had to take an early morning flight from Kansas to Chicago and connect to another flight for Albany. Weather was perfect. But due to "excess weight" our first flight took off late..and landed just 5 mins before the scheduled departure of our next flight. The displays in terminal C of ORD showed that the flight left. So there we were cursing our luck with the travels this year and waiting for our turn to talk to the helpdesk lady of United. She quickly checked and informed us that the flight is still at the gate (in terminal H) and if we run, we might be able to catch it. But after running for 10 mins, we couldn't make it in time and as ladyluck would have, our checked in baggage made it to the flight!!!!

With no availability of seats on any airline that day to Albany, we got routed to Hartford instead, a good 2hrs drive from Albany!!!!!!!! We landed on a "perfect winter day" at Hartford. Clear skies, a little warm with the sun showering his blessings on us and snow from the week having melted. Not knowing what to do, we planned to go to Boston as my cousin and her hubby nor we have ever been there. After driving for another 2 hours, we reached Boston downtown. None of us had any idea of what to see in Boston and where to go. So we finally ended up spending time at the World Trade Center area and then wandering the empty streets in downtown with everything closed. One thing I noticed while entering the city were the huge tunnels. Apparently as the city grew and highways were being built, they had no space other than build tunnels. This is also known as the Big Dig. We also saw different kinds of lettuce being used as "floral" arrangements on the pavements in Boston near the World Trade Center!!!!

And by the time we reached Albany Airport in the night to collect luggage, there was no one from United available. After running from pillar to post trying to get our luggage, and having spent about 90 mins, things got escalated to the airport manager and finally someone came to give us our luggage. We reached home at 11:50pm.....about 13 hrs late! The next few days, we spent time in Albany, the state capital of New York (the state...not the city). I got to know one interesting information. In India, usually the state capital is the biggest city in the state. But in US, almost all the states have a smaller city as the capital! New York capital is not New York but Albany. California has Sacramento and not San Francisco. Probably Boston is an exception!

Just like the SFO trip, here too most of the time was spent at home - with Chinnu and Dev. And ofcourse their cute parrotlet (yes... a species under the parrot family)- Nitai. Had a whale of a time with this cute little bird. And whenever we had to go out, unfortunately, it had to be put in the cage. It is so small that it can get into trouble with the different things at home and so couldn't be left free when no one was at home.

The New York Ball Drop is a big event and is supposed to be the biggest show in US for New Year's eve. And this year was the 100th year of this event. With the cold weather and stories of difficulties faced by people who have been there, we planned to skip this event. Instead, we made our way to Saratoga Springs, a short drive from Albany. This place is supposedly home to the second largest congregation after New York Times Square for the New Year festivities. This is a small town mainly known for the Horse races. Also, this town does a good job of promoting its local artistes - musicians and standup comedians and magicians. A lot of events spread across the town were organised and people could enjoy the shows for $13 per head. We had dinner at a local restaurant (being a vegetarian, without much choice, I had some fontina - supposedly a starter which I converted to an entree - and it was yummy!) and attended a standup comedy show and a 45mins show by a local band. Though I couldn't understand a single word of the song, the music was superb. And I felt the guy playing the violin was amazing. The 4 of us had a good time at this "concert". There were many young and old couples who were dancing when the band was playing!!! Enthusiasm and energy is all it takes for enjoying good music and dance. Not age......

And at the stroke of midnight, there was a wonderful display of fireworks. This was the best New year's eve I ever had. I would normally sleep into the new year :D . There was some snowfall on the very first day of the new year which didn't affect our flights though and we safely made home, though a little tired of having to "see" (read it as wait) at one more airport(Philadelphia this time). Seem to be spending as much time at the airports as in air this time.No trips have been planned as yet in this year...but hope to take the train from Kansas to Los Angeles, drive down Highway 1 from Los Angeles to San Francisco, see Florida, Hawaii, Chicago, Grand Canyon..........................