K: KonMari

Although I've never been obsessive about it, I like order. I like to have all my things organised and in an ideal world keep my home (and life) clutter-free. Whenever I get a chance to observe and adapt someone else's ideas, I'm more than willing to give it a try. So, when Shub told me about KonMari, I read up online about her ideas and it all seemed very interesting. I also went so far as to get one of her books and read it. I found Marie Kondo's ideas quite fascinating and although I found myself nodding vigorously at some points, I wasn't totally convinced by some. Some of her ideas that really caught my attention were

1) Before actually organising stuff, she talks about first discarding the stuff that we don't really need and then organising the stuff thats left thereafter.

2) She suggests handling things by item instead of by room, as in she says if you're organising your wardrobe, you should deal with all your clothes instead of just the ones you have in one room or closet. She also mentions a particular order in which things should be dealt with, while cleaning up your home.

3)One of the most important things she mentions is about keeping only things that spark joy and discard things which don't. I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with this but it works.

I'd read the book and I had decided that I'd declutter before we move to our new home and then set up the new place with only the things I need. But R's trip just days short of our moving date, the added stress and a little laziness on my part made sure that didn't happen. And although I tried to de-clutter as much of my stuff as I could, R (the hoarder)'s stuff is quite a lot and we ended up moving with all of it.

Along with Marie Kondo's book, I was also in parallel reading about the minimal wardrobe. This talks about having a few classic pieces in your wardrobe and avoiding the cliched situation of having tons of stuff and still nothing to wear! So, armed with the knowledge of both these articles/books, I set myself a goal: to make a functional wardrobe for myself with fewer pieces (I'm pretty sure I cannot manage the 10-piece or even 20-piece wardrobe for that matter) but each one really loved. I've decluttered my closet a fair bit and I'm now working on equipping it with only things I really love. I'm quite strict when I shop these days and I buy stuff only if I reeeeaally love it and only after I've tried it on and still love it and if it fits in well with the pieces I already have. And I've decided that for any new item that comes in, one or two old pieces go out. This seems to working wonders for me so far. My wardrobe is still a work in progress and so is my home. But hopefully I'll be proud enough  to post pictures here. Some day!

X is for XL

If you're in doubt, I'm talking about the sizing charts on cloth labels.

I've never been a very small person. Neither am I extremely big sized. When I was younger and in India, I always bought stuff with M size or sometimes even L. I wasn't really concerned about the sizing charts all that much. As long as I found anything I wanted to wear in my size, I was cool about what size the chart showed.

Then I moved to Singapore. Imagine my surprise when I went shopping the first time. I found that even the clothes labelled L didn't fit. I had to shift to XL or XXL even and that too, only if they were available in those sizes. Many labels didn't even make clothes to fit people like me. I was mortified. It was not that I had suddenly become fat or bigger. Just that the people around me were suddenly smaller and more petite. I remember getting terribly depressed about the size of clothes. I remember wondering if I really was so abnormally big that it warranted not getting clothes that were my size at all.

Well, that was clothes. About shoes, the lesser said the better. When I asked for a size 10 , the sales staff would give me questioning looks.  'A UK size 40 please', I would politely say again. They would then look at me funnily and then look at my feet. 'Are you sure?', they would ask. 'Yes, absolutely'! And with that I would show them my huge feet. They would nod, perhaps in agreement, perhaps in surprise and say, 'Oh sorry, Ma'am, this one doesn't come in a size 40. Why don't you try these?' and then show me the ugliest looking pair of shoes in the store.Or worse, they would point at shoes from the men's section and call them unisex. I would just inwardly roll my eyes, shake my head and walk away, muttering a quick thank you.

When I went to the US or to Europe though, I noticed a different trend. Forget L, I could actually even ask for an S size and fit into it comfortably! And shoes, oh yes! I would find any shoe in my size and a few sizes bigger too. I shopped like crazy and came back loaded, until my poor suitcase could hold no more, although I remember one of my Singaporean friends had to actually shop at the kids' section. She was embarrassed that she couldn't find clothes in her size. They were all too big for her. And it was then I realised, it is just a matter of where you are. And truly, and in this case especially, the people around you define what (size) you are.

Now I shop quite easily. Maybe now, I know where to shop. But I must admit, I actually find good shoes and even great ones, every now and then. I have absolutely no qualms about being a size XL or XXL even. And I'm not even embarrassed about my large feet. I guess that's what growing up does. I have lost my sense of extreme vanity along the way. It doesn't matter whether it is a size XS or XL that I'm wearing. What matters is that it fits well.

L is for Lucky

or not!

I was lucky that I got pregnant, when so many women have problems.
I thought not, once the morning  all-day-sickness started!

I considered myself unlucky that I gave birth to Pickles in the beginning of the eighth month.
My doctor said I was lucky. Born at 2.5Kg, he would have weighed at least 4 kg if he was full term. 'He saved you a lot of trauma', she said!

I thought I was unlucky that I was cheated out of two months of pregnancy.
Maybe I was lucky that I was spared the most difficult part!

I was unlucky, I thought,  because I had to give birth without any pain medications at all.
The doctor said I was lucky, because a few hours of intense pain was nothing compared to the backache I could have had as a side-effect of the epidural.

Pickles was unlucky, I thought, to have not got two more months in the womb.
But I guess, he is lucky to have an extra two months in his mum's arms.

It's all a matter of perspective, don't you think?

What goes around REALLY comes around

So, last week I found this wallet on a bus on campus. It was wedged in the space between two seats. The student card in the wallet indicated that it belonged to a student of the same university but from a different department. The wallet had plenty of cash, his IC, some credit/debit cards and other miscellaneous stuff that people usually put in a wallet. My first thought was to call and hand it over to the campus security or the lost and found section in the university. But then I realized if I did that, it would probably take a long time for it to get to the owner. He must be frantically looking for his wallet. So I plumaged through his wallet and found this receipt for a badminton court booking, and in that I found his telephone number. I called the guy and told him that I had found his wallet. He said he would come to my lab and pick it up.

After a while, the guy turned up at my lab. He told me that he had in fact lost his wallet a week ago and he had decided that he would not get it back. It was lying in that bus for a week. Since it was stuck in between the seats, no body had noticed it. He thanked me profusely for returning his wallet and left. After that, my day was really busy and I forgot all about the incident.

That day evening after I left the lab, R and I went out for dinner.  Since it had been a long day at work, I came home and went straight to bed. At 11:30 p.m., my phone rang. The guy on the phone introduced himself and asked me if I had lost a laptop, a Mac book pro. It was then that I realized that I had left it in the restaurant after dinner. I had not even realized that it was missing. At that moment, I had a panic-attack. He told me he had found my laptop at the restaurant and he did not want to give it to the police, as he was not sure if I would get it back. He asked me to come and pick it up whenever I could. I left immediately and went to get it. On my way to meet him, it struck me, how had the guy found my number? When I asked him, he said he had used my computer to log in to my face-book account (it doesn’t need a password as I am the only one who uses it). He had instant messaged one of my friends who was in Australia to get my number and called me. Later my friend messaged me to tell me “ I can’t believe you lost your computer and a weird guy just asked me for your number”. It seems that the guy had pretended to be me, to ask for my number and only later admitted to being someone else.  God bless that guy for returning my laptop. I shudder every time I think of the consequences if I had not got my Mac back. So much of my work would have been at stake among other things (I don’t back up very frequently).

Lessons learnt at the end of an eventful day:

Be more careful with your stuff

Back up your computer more regularly

What you give is definitely what you get in return!

Face the music

I doubt that you would want to but if you ever want to stop liking your favorite song, I have a solution.

Just make that song your daily wake up alarm tone.

And I learnt this the hard way.

I used to love the song “ Beautiful Day “ by U2.

Now every time I hear the song playing, I have the strongest urge to make it stop. 

Last leg

Today is my last day in San Francisco and I'm actually feeling bad about going back.  I've enjoyed every bit of this trip. I'm not looking forward to the long flight back but I am looking forward to going home. I've learnt so much on this trip. Thought i'd just share some gyan.

• Girls really know how to have fun. It doesn't matter which country, culture or background they come from. Trust me, I think girls know how to have fun, much better than the boys.
• Most people you meet are nice to you, as long as you are nice to them.
• If you need help, you just need to ask.
• Always make sure you travel with like-minded people who at least share similar interests. It helps.
• There will always be a million ways to get from A to B. To find the easiest way, you have to ask other people!
• There is such a thing as "too much shopping".
• Don't judge people, not even random strangers. You know nothing about them.
• No matter how much fun you have had on vacation,  you'll always miss home! I know I did.

I travel, I learn

They say that you don't really know a person until you've lived with them. And  I think that applies mostly to the people who you are really close to. Like your closest friends and maybe your partner.

I have now decided that you don't really know people well enough until you have travelled with them. I thought I knew my colleagues, now friends. Now as I travel with them, I've learned so much more about them. Not that I meant to, but i have. You really know what kind of a person he or she is. It opens your eyes to this whole new side of a person, a side that you didn't know existed.

And that is true about myself too.I've learned that as you travel you learn so much about yourself. I find myself discovering a lot of things about me. Things that I didn't know before. Really!


I met so many people. Most people are nice and well, few are not. I've enjoyed this experience of meeting new people. Its something you don't do unless you are traveling alone. To be honest, I'm not a very outgoing person. I take a while to warm up to people. But it has been a good experience, almost fun even, to meet and chat up with a stranger from a different country.I've learnt that it's not that bad. I can talk to strangers. And I can still make new friends.

Have you ever felt this way while on vacation? Have you learnt newer things about yourself? I don't know what it is. Maybe it is that you have a lot of time to sit back and reflect. Maybe it is because your mind is really free. And maybe also that you do so many things out of your routine.

Ok maybe I'm getting all philosophical here, but it is true. Think about it. Haven't you ever reflected on your life on a bus or train journey? Looking out the window, with the breeze in your hair. You get a clearer picture of your life? You want to do better things with your life. Has it ever happened to you?

Introspection

Talking to a much younger colleague today, made me realize a few things:

• You don’t always have to be older to be wiser.
• Sometimes you need another person’s perspective on your life, to make you realize that maybe you do have it all.
• Hanging out with younger people does not necessarily mean feeling older. You can actually be one of them without realizing it.