"learning to find" from Vee floyd ;)

Into the torn chair, I pretend to relax
Twisted my neck to see who's snooping from back
A quiet gathers on a chaotic build
Preventing the view, my shadow is the shield
Too early to leave, I think of the last, how
Can I move on from this irreversible past?
Can't keep my mind from the severing ties
Disguised and svelted, just another self-culprit, I

Cloak is slipping from the grasp of my arms
Unseen revealed, I panic and I can't think of anything
No more protection, my invisibility is gone
Unhidden and out, lights on me shone
A heart in submission that's learning to find
Surroundings clouded but pounding to bind
Can't keep my mind from the severing ties
Disguised and svelted, just another self-culprit, I

Step out of the door discarding the layer nigh
My garb is down, telling another white lie
Unclad from cover, I see green meadows by
And steal a glance of where before was I
A sun edging around by the dampening skies
Could take me away on a unimaginable rise
The hope of excitement is making me wish
"Suspended animation. A state of bliss"
Can't keep my mind from the severing ties
Disguised and svelted, just another self-culprit, I

Stressed?

So you think you are stressed? Someone sent me these images to check out if you're stressed. Just stare at an image and if you see the it slowly circling/revolving/moving, you're not stressed after all. But if it appears still then may be you are. Hey, no guarantees of how true it is but sometimes it's fun watching the images move (when actually they don't).

Another way of relieving stress is to go read dialogues from the members of the Griffin family of the "Family Guy", especially Stewie Griffin. As he puts it "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but you're a total bitch."

"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away"

I don't remember having to mentally fight with myself to get out of bed when I was a kid and I had to wake up everyday at 7 in the morning to go to school. Now it's a war. It takes half hour to tell myself that waking up at 9 AM is my destiny.

This seems to be the biggest problem I have. Well, this and the fear of drowning in to the sky or getting hit by a hanging star that seems to be loyally suspende at the same place with me everyday.

But it's funny how people want to grow up only to realize that they were probably better off being a kid. Not that being a grown up necessarily stinks, but with time comes gradual erosion of innocence to which the growing child is oblivious. It seems that the saying - "Igonrace is bliss" - dictates our childhoods. You don't know much and you can't argue much and can't do much ado about nothing.

A little know-how and I want to butt my opinion in to any and all issues. For once I'd just like to listen to arguments and not feel like saying anything. Stay silent. If I want to say something I want to raise my eyebrows or frown my face or smoke my ears or mumble and whisper and twinkle or strickle tears down my eyes and touch or get away from being close.

But it seems that it'd be easier to do if I were a kid, now wouldn't it? :) Although, I find writing is the only way I can stay silent and shout.

drug test, amsterdam and privacy

So I joined this new company. Well, technically it's the same company I've been working for the last year but as a contractor. But anyways, pre-offer requirement is a drug test, which, I believe, a lot of American companies are doing now a days.

They also have a policy of random drug testing for the employees which some of them believe is not so random. Some people might think that if you've long stinking hair and if you make use of the words "rock on" more often than required or if you start your sentence with a long and stretched "dude" (like the big Lebowski) then you are more likely to be 'randomly' picked for screening. That falls in total agreement with the fact that a lot of random number generating algorithms output the same random number if your input seed is the same.

But I digress. Soon after the drug test, I went to Amsterdam. Coincidence? There's not even a co-relation. And people who think that one can fail a drug test just by smelling Amsterdam are not so far away from the truth. So that kind of "freedom of expression" leads some to question how far are we stretching the invasion of privacy of an individual when you employ a mandatory drug test.

But the spectrum of freedom is so wide and varied in this world that while one individual sees drug testing as intrusion to his freedom, the other is still working on freedom to show her face in public, literally.

So there's another open ended slog. It always seems that I end up like this a lot of times. Did I just say 'end'? Because that's what I'm not doing.

Vegetarisch?

"Frisches Rahmkohlrabigemüse mit gebackenen Champignons dazu Salzkartofelln"
Well that's just a fancy German name for fries and steamed, salty potatoes with fried mushrooms. And it's readily available in the famous Hofbräuhaus beer hall in München to wash it down with a litre (and no less) of its original brew. And mind you, the potatoes are not that salty. You gotta put some more salt on top, especially if you are Indian. But what do I know about Deutsch food or for that matter European food! They also eat a lot of bread. And of course every bakery features tons of different kinds of breads. And then there are pretzels! But I've to admit that breads and beers complement each other well.

Talking about tastes, I got a taste of how it is to be driving on the 'Autobahn'. Fast, of course! But why does no speed limit on road makes sense is evident by their way of driving.
The idea is very simple. The drivers anticipate other drivers' next move rather than putting that responsibility on them. They take it upon the themselves to estimate that the car in front of them is going to change lanes because they have nowhere else to go and they are probably not going to slow down. That, infact is the norm. So you give way to the fast ones. And if the right most lane is empty you move your car there. Period. That's another rule. So I guess that sort of discipline helps to keep it safer with no speed limits.

With me reaching speeds of 180-190 kmph (but at these speeds you can see your fuel gauge going down in real time) in a lousy car like Fiat Punto, it is only imaginable what could be achieved when you are driving a German engineered motor vehicle. No wonder they make good cars. They probably had the Autobahn before they had world-class automobiles. So it was only natural that they come up with cars to kiss those roads.

However, one thing that is hard to get used to is the traffic signals, which, unlike US, are only at your side of the road and not across the cross roads. So you have to make sure that you're not too far ahead when you stop because if you are, you won't know when the red turns green until someone honks from the back of the queue. And it's even worse if there's no one to honk and tell you that it's green.