Fortune cookies

Do you believe in fortune cookies? I do not know if I should believe in them or not. If I go by the last 2 cookies I have broken, I would love to believe them. :)

Life hasn’t been all that great over the last few days. In fact over the last nineteen days, I haven’t been in the best frame of mind. I have been torturing myself by the fact that I am alone in this tiny town with no one to talk to. I am not saying that this is not true anymore. I am not saying that I will not be torturing myself about the thought. I am pretty sure I will. I will, in most probability, continue to torture myself over the fact that I am alone with no one to talk to. I will, in most probably, continue to torture myself over the fact that I have nothing to do after office hours. I will, for sure, continue to torture myself over the fact that I miss the Mumbai office. The people in the Mumbai office are so different. There is a kind of warmth I feel when I am there. I do not feel comfortable here. I need someone to talk to. I have always had someone with me whenever I was in the US. But this time, I am all alone. People here are least interested in making conversation with you. I don’t know what the reason is. Maybe they like this normally. Maybe they not interested in making conversation with an Indian. Maybe they not interested in talking to me because they do not like me as their boss. God alone would know. Maybe there is something that I am doing wrong. Maybe they are waiting for me to make the first move. I have tried but I cannot. I am built that way. :)

Apart from these “public relation” issues, I am facing several other issues like food, conveyance to get around etc. I am not going to crib about it all over again now. I have cribbed enough about it here. Well, I am going to continue cribbing though, maybe not here though. :)

I started this out talking about fortune cookies. The reason being that these fortune cookies are getting me to think positive. This might sound a bit silly or kiddish, but it’s true. I am not saying it has got me to think positive but yeah, it surely brings a smile to my face when I read them. :)

Ever since I've come here, I’ve got 2 fortune cookies. Here’s what they said:

Cookie #1: Your talents will be recognized and rewarded.
Cookie #2: Your path may be difficult, but will be rewarding.

I am trying to relate this to my situation. I am on a difficult path. I am not sure if the path is really difficult or if it’s just me who is making it difficult. But, whatever it is, I will expect a reward at the end of all this. :)

Living in Boise

Today is my seventeenth day in Boise and I can confidently say that this period has been one of the worst in all the 25 years and 6 months of my existence on this planet. I say so for a varied lot of reasons like the work I am here for, the food, the place around the hotel etc. Actually it’s not just about these factors but I have come to believe that staying alone at any place is not easy. But the good thing is that staying all alone in a far country has also taught me a few things.

I am here to manage my first project. And I know how important this project is to my company and to my own personal career. So there is pressure. Pressure to make sure that the project goes good and the customer is happy. What I find difficult to cope with is the fact that I am here managing my first project that has a team full of people I just do not know. I had never met or spoken to these people before. I do not know how each person behaves or reacts to situations. And I am responsible for this team. Also, the team is distributed meaning, some of the team sits in Boise, some in San Diego, and another in Corvallis. This makes it even more difficult. I am not used to the work culture here. Here people come in and leave office whenever they want to. In India, if I am to manage a project, I at least know the team, I know the way people in the team will react to situations, and I know the team members schedule. I know the team comes in at 9:30am and so I can plan accordingly. Here it is difficult to manage this. Moreover, some of the team members are part-time. So they work only for a fixed time per week. I have never managed anything like this before. Apart from all these problems, the usual official politics exist along with a few difficult people.

Moreover, I am not sure of how the project is going. As in, I haven’t really had proper feedback from the customers. From the feedback I am getting on individual documents, I have mixed feelings. Some documents receive great feedback while some receive a hell a lot of changes. So I don’t really know. Hopefully I know soon.

I do not think I am having great food here. The hotel provides complimentary breakfast that I enjoy but after that, it’s a problem. I have been living on packets on maggi and Knoor soup. The Knoor soup sucks. There are a few restaurants around the hotel. There is a pizza place, a deli corner, a steakhouse, and a Chinese place. But I am not too interested in any of this. I end up eating fruits for lunch and some maggi for dinner. Yeah, I do order some Chinese food at times for dinner, but the Chinese food here is nothing like the Chinese food in India.

I do not have a car here which makes it difficult to move around. I wanted to go downtown to see the place since I heard it is much more happening than the place where I stay. But have never been able to get there. Hiring a cab is too expensive since it would take about 60$ from my 45$ per day allowance. Taking the bus is the only option I got. However, the last bus, to and from downtown, departs at 6:35pm and I am out of office only at about 5. This leaves me with no time to actually catch a bus, go downtown, see the place, and then catch the 6:35pm bus from there. So I have been confined to the area around the hotel. The area around the hotel is not bad to spend about 2 days after that there is nothing much that you can do.

After all these hardships, I have come to realize this: I am a person who is too emotional and am very attached my folks. I have been missing them a lot over these past 17 days. I am very happy that I can talk to my folks back home daily. I have been chatting with them daily in the morning. Thanks to technology. :)
Guess I’ll stop cribbing for the day. :) I’ll have more to say as I live through my days in Boise.

Second week in Boise

I am writing from office today. I do not have a lot of work today. Well, at least for now. The project seems to be falling into place now. Every team member has kind of identified the role they play in the team. So I am assuming it should be better off from now.

We did face a few hiccups initially but I guess these are normal with any project. The customer decided to change the scope of the project on Friday and yesterday they gave us new guidelines to follow. I think with the new guidelines, our job is going to be that much easier. Just that we are now going to write for an intermediate audience and this is going to change our approach a lot. We now, do not have to bother about the technical details that we thought the novice user might not understand. We do not need to hand hold the users right from start to end. So that’s cool. :)

Back in the US

Yes.. I am back in the US aftera year and 7 months. How do I feel coming back? Well.. not too great! But it's ok. Got to live with it. :)
I am in Boise (ID) this time around. Its a pretty place but a "pretty" sad place too. :) Its a nice laidback town and not for a person who's lived most of his life in fast-paced streets of Bombay. Ahh Bombay-Bombay.. I miss you so much.. And yeah.. I miss a lot of other people in Bombay.. I miss my folks back home..I miss my friends.. I miss Krups and Pri in office.. I miss them all.. :(
I did nothing much today. Got up early (this is something that has surprised me in this trip. I seem to be getting up really early). Where is the Tarun I know?? Where is the laziness gone?? Where has the Tarun"ness" gone?? hehe.. I do not like this but I know my parents will. Anyways, someone is happy that I get up early. :) Yeah, so I got up early, spoke to mom and dad..Spoke to friends.. it was afternoon by then.. Had lunch and watched a movie..
I had decided to go to Albertsons today.. I went up there.. Walked up there.. 45 mins walk one way.. but out of nowhere I had this real bad urge to go to Albertsons to day.. So I did.. The route was a bit scary for abt 5 seconds.. There were pavements all the way.. but for those 5 seconds it looked like the shrubs around hadn't been cut in a while.. but I managed to reach Albertsons.. Shopped a bit, got a soda and then walked back home.. Phew! I was tired..
I had shopped for some shrimps and veggies.. I decided to cook them.. Got the veggies cut.. added butter.. put them in the micro and cooked them for a while.. then added the shrimps and cooked again for a while.. It turned out good.. with just a "little" bit of extra salt. :)
And now I am watching this movie "kismet Konnection"..Looks like Iam going to end up watching more hindi movies here than when I was in India.
Alrighty.. am gonna go back to the movie now.. Decided to write this while i was listening to this amazing love song from the movie "BaKhuda".. I think its a great song.. Really nice.. :)
Ok.. songs over.. now back to the movie..Ciao..