Books

Mother of all Facebook Memes

Sharing a variety of personal information has become the latest fad on social networking websites especially Facebook. Even the blogosphere took notice and many bloggers started to write about them on their blogs instead of carrying on the Fb tradition. Although I wasn't tired of being tagged by friends, I just found it overwhelming as yet another task on my to-do list. Also I didn't feel comfortable sharing some things and wondered why would anyone find random things about me interesting. But then a part of me also wanted to share. So I decided to post them on my blog (no tagging here) as a composite of more useless information about me:

Random Things about Me

• I tend to do things in even numbers unless it's a prime number (hence two kids and only one marriage)
• I was born in a place that no longer exists
• I had my own library as a kid (with rules, fines etc.)
• I became a naturalized US citizen in 1990 and have voted in every single presidential election since then (I should vote in non-presidential years as well)

Books Read

• I have read only about 15-20 titles from the Facebook list
• since I am literate in two languages, I wanted to add Urdu books as well
• I also read a lot of non-fiction and some of these titles are just as passionate, thrilling and exhilarating  as the classics list
• I love to read non-fiction in English; fiction in both English and Urdu and poetry only in Urdu

Mommy Meme

• I have two children - 11 year old daughter & 9 year old son
• Both were born via surgery as a result of last minute complications
• I gained 50 and 60 lbs respectively during each pregnancy
• I had chronic morning sickness for about 5 months during my first pregnancy. I was hospitalized twice due to dehydration
• I was working at Rice's Fondren Library during my first pregnancy in 1997. I was taking an HTML class and started a page about the baby. I received name suggestions from all over the world. My daughter had HTML tags before she had a name!

Music

• I have rudimentary knowledge of western music
• I don't like the Beatles (I know I've probably offended every single person I know)
• I mostly listen to filmy music from Indian movies (Bollywood)
• Lyrics are most important to me then good percussion
• I enjoy both western and eastern classical music
• Genres I like: folk, sufi, fusion, devotional 

Bucket List

• places I would love to see in the next 2-3 years: Turkey, Morocco, Spain
• I would like to live in London
• learn to swim
• take a flamenco class
• write a recipe novel a la _Like Water for Chocolate_
• do research on Muslim libraries of Al-Andulus and Baghdad
• get involved in a non-profit organization that teaches about tolerance and coexistence

So there you have it - TMI about me. I have probably forgotten a dozen items for each list but perhaps I can save it for the next meme wave.

New Year, Old Me

I've always had trouble with new year's resolutions. They never seem to work for me. I would rather pick a random date if I wanted to change a habit! I bought the "5" journal from Starbucks to list all the things I would like to do in the next five years. This is much more appealing since I don't actually have to do them; I can create all sorts of fantastic lists but not worry about checking off even one item.

I did however listed some items as possible goals for 2009 and one of them was blogging more. I would like to write more posts to improve my writing. I can't see it as a platform for venting either about work or life in general. So here's my first post of the year albeit a bit late. Perhaps I will write more about my "5" journal?

Can reading blogs make you smarter?

The answer is yes if you check out this list of 100 blogs prepared by "onlineuniversities.com". I am not familiar with this website but I did find the blog list interesting. I will definitely add blogs listed under Literature, International Perspective and Do-It-Yourself to my evergrowing list of feeds.

2008 Election

The enormity of this year's presidential election did take me by surprise. I wasn't expecting myself to get so involved and emotional. I was a nerve wreck early Tuesday night; after Pennsylvania polls were in, I knew how it was going to end but couldn't handle the wait and went to bed. Wednesday morning was when it really hit me: history was made at so many levels; of course an African-American male being elected as US president was of enormous importance but as an immigrant, I couldn't help myself from grinning! I could honestly tell my kids now that with hard work, anything is possible. It was indeed victorious for the millions of immigrants in the U.S. as well.

Another exciting factor associated with this year's election is how Web 2.0 tools were used by Obama's campaign. It increased civic awareness among the 18-35 year olds who spend hours online. Both Facebook and  Twitter had several types of Election 2008 events/activities. I recently encountered two people who are doing research on this exact topic: 2008 election and Web 2.0. I am not sure how much 2.0 contributed towards Obama's win but it did play an important role. Finally people (pundits and naysayers) will start to give it some respect so to speak and look at social networking in a completely different way.

Parenting elderly parents

I am part of the "sandwich" generation - I take care of small kids as well as elderly parents. There comes a time, if you are lucky enough, that your relationship dynamics change: you start to parent your own parents. My parents moved to Houston in 2001 and my eldest sister and I have been taking care of them. Some times it scares me how much they trust my opinions when it comes to medical treatments. Just because my job requires me to answer questions all day long, they think I know "all the answers"!

My father fell and fractured his femur in three places yesterday. Unfortunately when this accident happened (in my sister's garage), no one was at home and we still don't know how much time elapsed between his fall and his rescue. When my sister and her husband came home around 5:30 pm and opened the garage, that's when they found him. He was still conscious and screamed for help. Ambulance rushed him to the hospital and his xray showed the fractured bone. 

The orthopedic surgeon did his best to repair the damage by installing a rod and two screws. My father who recently had his pacemaker replaced (needed new batteries) seems like the bionic man - heart running on batteries and now a metal rod is holding this leg together. I wonder what his recuperation would be like? Would he be able to walk independently again? It saddens me to see my so fragile parents become more frail every day. I shudder to think of the day when they may not be here. I have always felt so protected around them. Even though I have become their caretaker, they are still my parents who will love me the most no matter what.

Podcasting recipes

I had been meaning to start a cooking blog. I know what a futile attempt since I have been such an infrequent blogger here! I also wanted to find out more about podcasting. Well I downloaded Audacity on my Macbook yesterday and just did my first podcast of a recipe from "Best of Waffles and Pancakes".