We have reached a quandary in our daughter’s education. Should we allow our daughter to watch TV or Not?. I don’t want to become one of those families that are defined by the TV, watch it in the morning while breakfast instead of having a conversation or that used the TV as a cheap babysitter but at the same time, TV can allow us to have a quite time as well as to provide some education to our daughter. Plus this is one opportunity that we can use to teach her to distinguish good TV from horrible TV. Or we can try to avoid TV.

What to do? After some debate ( I was for not TV, Miriam for some TV), we settled for a comprise. We will select only a few shows for her to see, which are:

Plaza sesamo: The Spanish version of sesame street. It is filmed in Mexico and it has some of the characters from Sesame Street as well as some original characters.

Nouky and friends: A French show for kids, which is about 3 friends (Noukie, Paco and Lola) that play and learn together. Now even though is a French show, it is in Spanish.

We will add shows as we review them but so far these have been a success.

When I have applied for my so called I-485 application, I had to complete medical examination at USICS approved doctor and submit along with. These tests include MMR. TB and couple more and since my wife was pregnant one of the test/vaccine was not given to her and the same is mentioned in the application. I am well aware that this test would be due any time after the pregnancy. This happened in August 2007 and we were through the pregnancy in January 2008. I don’t know why but I have completely forgot about the pending test.

I sent my family to India on June 21 2009 and before their departure date I was talking to Sridhar and recalling the fact that the test is pending and what shall be done if the request from USICS is received. Guess what, I just received the request for initial evidence or RFE requesting the remaining tests for my wife.

These are the following option we were working on.

Option 1: Since I have only 30 days to send the reply, bring only my wife to USA for a week time and complete the tests. Costs me $1200 for round trip.
Advantage: I get to see my wife.
Disadvantage: Our kids have to be alone with grand parents for a week to ten days.

Option 2:Bring all of them and they will be here till my vacation time and we all go together and return as per schedule. Costs me $2200 for all of them.
Advantage: Get to be with the family totally
Disadvantage: Expensive.

Option 3: Change the return dates of the current tickets and bring all of them here and cancel my vacation and live happily ever after. Costs me $600 to change the dates.
Advantage: Get to be with my family.
Disadvantage: I get to cancel my vacation and my parents will be upset.

If I had planned the test or at least thought of this well in advance their vacation, I would have been free of these brain storm and money. At the end of the day, I did learned a good lesson. As you have all guessed, I may be going with option one but would have saved a lot of money.

I always believed in having some time for self each and every day. When I sent my family to India for a long trip (3 months), had many plans for myself.  I am all by my self and free to do many and any thing(s). These are the list of thing I wanted to do during this free time.

1. Loose weight.
2. Work on certification
3. Go out to woods and work on my dream photographs.
4. Save Money.

It has been a month already and this is what I have accomplished, exactly in reverse.

1. Gained weight
2. No progress on certification
3. No photography
4. More expenses

I have been trying to straight my thoughts and finally end up on the couch with Netflix. I am not sure how many movies I have watched. For example, last Sunday I watched Netflix for 12 hrs. So far I have cooked only couple of times and most of the times eating out side and gaining weight. Had an opportunity to do hiking couple of times with Aravinda, Netflix/TV made me step back. I was never been lazy except these days. Trying to realize the need for family and kids once you got used to that.

When my family was with me, I was literally able to find time for my self no matter what I do for them. Now, I have all the time with me and no time to accomplish my goals.No matter how long you are on phone, web cam or chat, there is no substitute for being together.

Lesson learned : Never sent your family for more than a month (when you have kids).
Truth discovered: Once you have completed a stage of your life, you can never go back.

While writing this post I was getting my senses back, getting confidence that I will go through this tough time and reach/attempt my goals. Wish me luck.

When I first thought of this title, there are so many ideas/thoughts flew in my mind, literally so many. I thought then, this must be one powerful topic to discuss. Lets start with the definitions from Wikipedia.

“A breed is a group of domestic animals with a homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics that distinguish it from other animals of the same species.”

“Greed denotes desire to acquire wealth or possessions beyond the needs of the individual, especially when this accumulation of possession denies others legitimate needs or access to those or other resources.“

Let me bluntly say that we are breed of the greed. When human race started stuggling for existance, we just were worried about food. Later stages we were worried about shelter and clothing. Its soo amazing why the whole mess of being greedy had started.

Its been said many times that the difference between an animal is the ability to think. If you ask me I would add ‘greed’ to think.

Every thing starts with what to have. Frankly speaking, what is the limit for the limit and this limit differs widely based on the person to person. One persons limit is to get food for his/her family for that day. There is another person who want all possible facilities in his/her life. Is this behaviors based on pure need fulfillment.

I wanted to refer to Maslow’s Theory of human needs in this post.

Pay attention to the font and how its decaying in size while climbing to the pinacle. As per the theory the bottom most part is the most urgent and needed for maximum population and it narrows down while you grow. The moment a common person not following this pattern then becomes a greedy one.

I am not sure if I made any point here but I know its a dry and very long discussion. I might need to do more posts on this topic.