January

This month has been very interesting for me so far. The first two weeks were sort of entirely spent in the office. Starting January 2nd, until Jan 10th, I can probably say that I spent around 75% of my time in the office. It is good that we dont have such deadlines very often.. just once a quarter, better than many jobs though. The difference between working during deadlines in the US and here, is that people over here tend to get kind of bitchy and pissed off because they want to go back to their families. While working in the US, I did work with people who stayed with their families.. but they never got bitchy. These guys would be in the office until 4am in the morning and still show up at 10-11am the same day. Overall, I am pretty satisfied with the level of effort with the way the team functioned during the deadline. No major hiccups, no issues, everything went pretty much smoothly. The best thing usually happens after the deadline, when we get to party and get a couple of days off. We had the same deal this time also and it was well utilized.

The weekend after the deadline was pretty much relaxing. I got a chance to catch up with a few friends. Last weekend my grandfather, from my mom’s side, passed away. He was quite old and was suffering from throat cancer since last 6 months. It was quite tragic when it happened. But in hindsight, we kinda knew it was for the best. He had suffered quite a bit during those 6 months. He went from someone who could walk, speak, eat on his own, to someone who was bedridden, had to be tube fed and could not even write. In the end he passed away peacefully, looking at my grandmom. It was so hard to believe he was gone. It really hit me when I was at the funeral, that I would no longer be seeing him. He would no longer be coming to our house and sit in his favorite chair and read the newspaper. I just hope he is happy where he is now and watching me, guiding me and helping me make the right decisions.

The month is almost over.. it has been an eventful year so far.. lets see how the rest of year goes.