Just a confession that I was lonely

Yesterday I went to a socialising pub with my colleague where you could play pool and listen to a live band and ofcourse have some costly drinks ( after a loooong time ) . ( Yesterday some Filipino band was entertaining the crowd with two good looking ladies who incidentally sang well too ;-) It was called the "The Lounge - Your cue to unwind" ) . .. and the three odd hours we spent there were mostly spent in silence.
They played good music - the Righteous brother's Unchained Melodies ( one of my all time favourites ) and some Eagles and some Bob Marley . The crowd was mostly foreign except for some local interventions ;-)

Spent the Sunday afternoon and almost whole of evening writing down the incidents that affected my life. It almost made a 20-sheet-document ;-) and then when someone called me and asked what I was doing .. I told I was writing my autobiography ;-) That was a very different reply than what he would have ever imagined to hear.

Quote de jour :

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
- Tennessee Williams

Seems to match with the present state of my mind ... so I thought I would think about it and let you all think about this too ;-)

HBR , Office politics and Spelling Bee

A long entry ( very unlikely of me ) to compensate for the many days of absence ..

For the past three days I was immersed in the spectacular world of magazines mostly biz .. ( HBR , Economists et al ) . And i found this issue of the Harvard Business Review to be good .. actually fantastic !.. I usually donot read HBR. It talked about office politics and personal management and how to cope with change and a few advices from the top . And there was a work sheet on keeping your priorities and setting time, money and energy to your commitments ! ...wonderful .

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Today morning I watched this documentary called Spellbound ( the story on 8 self driven kids in the 1999 National Spelling bee contest ) The documentary is excellently made with excellant background score ! .
1. Sometimes wonder if their parents are pushing them a little too much .. Else i think that these are really talented kids who by now are in some top notch Ivy Leagues or doing their majors in Microbiology or Economics or Nanotechnology .

2. Another particularly interesting thing is the percentage of Indian kids who make it to the finals every year !! ( India as in Asian Indian. The ones with the dots on their forehead ... not the feather :-) ) The 1999 spelling bee champion ( in this documentary is an Indian .. sorry for the plot-spoil .. but there are many indians in the finals ;-) ) First generation Indians in America are particularly known for their hard work and determination ! ( out of the last 6 years .. 3 spelling bee champions are of Indian origin )

3. Kids become scared of loosing . They tend to develop anxiety and fear towards loosing . Their parents fail to understand that loosing is a part of life ... Listen to this ...
" Akshay, an eighth-grader who attends Mountain Ridge Middle School in Colorado Springs fainted during Round 6. But the boy quickly stood up and correctly spelled "alopecoid," which means like a fox. Akshay received a standing ovation from the audience ! " ( from the 2003 Annual Spelling bee contest )

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Quote de jour !

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting
something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have." – Frederick Koenig

This was sent to me by one of my colleagues I sometimes wonder how much it holds true . When I sent this quote to one of my other friends, she told me it was not happiness it was contentment that Koenig really wanted to say .. ( a day after that .. after "hours of contemplation" she said that probably it really IS Happiness !