i hope you visit india someday. and i hope you love it. and i hope you leave, still loving it. i'm reaching a point where i wonder if my formerly rosy perspective is redeemable. 2+ years in this emerging market has made me cynical. we were in gulmarg , kashmir this past weekend and it was a respite from the pollution, from the touts, from the traffic, from the deception, from the ad hoc - ness . we returned monday afternoon, descending through a thick blanket of brown. we purchased a pre -paid taxi voucher inside the airport and proceeded to wait outside in the very long line. the taxis were not queuing; instead, they were waiting down the street for permission to queue. when we pushed our way to the front and demanded a taxi assignment, the taxi drivers refused to take us because our proximity to the airport meant they would not earn much money on the trip. my boyfriend stopped one taxi by blocking it with his body while i hopped in and dragged my bag inside. the tax...

today i decided to focus, to not get distracted, and to not multi-task. i want to test the theory that multi-tasking is actually LESS efficient. i reason, "i can be DOING something while waiting for this ppt to open," and then i end up on my friend's blog when the ppt opened minutes ago. living a 5S life may not be so pleasant for those around me and i'm not striving to achieve that. i do wonder, however, if the frenetic, multi-tasking lives we have become accustomed to living inform the exorbitantly stressful lives we experience. i've been thinking about stress a lot lately. i recognize that i've become stressed out. i listened to a podcast from "speaking of faith" defining stress as a natural, beneficial response to danger. prolonged periods of stress, however, weaken our immune system which may result in illness. after trying shorter work days, prayer & meditation, ballet, getting outside, taking quiet evenings for myself, and rem...

i find that, though i have more work to do than i can possibly hope to accomplish, i still get bored with it sometimes. a rich (wo)man's dilemma, i know. i'm not the office assistant sitting in the next room, searching for something to do and awaiting chai serving time so he has something, ANYTHING to do. but today i decided to blog in hopes that it would inspire me to do my real work. so, what to write about? oh, this just in (well, "in" two weeks ago): yours truly is going to be a professional ballerina next week. what that really means is that i'm getting paid to perform ballet, swan lake (to be exact). this belongs in the lengthy list of things that are possible only in india. i abandoned my professional ballet dreams at the tender age of 14 but now that my age has doubled, it's time to turn dreams into reality.