Lunch at Mi Ranchito

Left to right starting with me: Lizee, Madhavi, Dilusha, Radhika and Susan

Its been a long time since our lunch gang went out and ate. So we decided we would go sometime this week and planned that to be on Thursday. After a 5 min discussion with ladies as to what they wanted to eat, I filtered out all the cuisines and decided on a Mexican one [ I feel so proud when I take up some responsibility and seriously plan on it]. I chose Mi Ranchito. Now, Mi Ranchito is a place that I've been before twice and knew had good food. So yeah, I drove the ladies to the place and ordered my usual Chile Releno a la carte and in about45 mins everyone were done with their lunch and most importantly none were complaining about the food, which made me feel good tht they dint have problem with the place. It was a good change to go out and eat with the ladies, knowing how I always get to spend time only with guys and have usual guys talk. But there is one thing that would never change no matter I spend time with guys or gals, I am always teh center of attraction. I talk a lot and I make sure I talk with everyone in the gang, not leaving ne1 feel they are alone. Intrestingly, while I am there there is good laughs in the group coz of my pj's[the so called sense of humor] as well as my instant reactions in getting teased. But everyone including me knows that I luv getting teased :-P

A fun day !!!

A delicious chocolate cake, tiring whirlyball, killings at laser tag, crash-testing at go-karting and gutter-ball at bowling. Wow..what a memorable day was yesterday! Yes, it was the day of my team event at Powerplay. After finishing some work for the day I was all ready for the team lunch as well as the team event yesterday afternoon at 11:30. Brian, Jared, Sheng and Matt opted for driving their own cars and leave from Powerplay. So Tim volunteered to drive Barton, Devon, Evan and me in his car. So we all finally left around 11:45 I guess and since Tim did not know the way I told him tht I could use the BB I carried to help him navigate. But the fun part was when we reached the destination, it turned out to be a house :-P. They had constructed a house there and the map data was not updated..Powerplay was behind the fence of that house ;-). So after a funny start we finally reached Powerplay and the first thing we did was to go towards buffet. I am sure including me all were starving as it was way past our lunch times.

From Left : Matt, Jared, Evan, Devon, Barton [team lead], Tim, Sheng, myself and Brian

Lunch : Though I had a choice of cheese pizza, hard-shell taco, mashed potatoes, mac n cheese and salad [ wonder y I am a vegetarian sometimes when I miss other delicious choices in front of me :-( ], I went for salad and potatoes with some chips and salsa. For past few days I have been a bit calorie conscious and think twice before I eat anything. I am not worried if I would put on weight, but still wanted to monitor myself for a month or so. I then had a delicious chocolate cake topped with fudge and almonds. That was the best part of the lunch I had..something delicious finally!

WhirlyBall : For those who donno wats whirlyball..lemme tell u about it first..It combines lacrosse, hockey and basketball with bumper cars. You’ll use hand-held scoops to propel whiffle balls at your scoring target. In a team of five, and with the help of a professional referee, you’ll have a bang-up time trying to outscore the competition. I was in the yellow team initially with my number being 9. Brian was our team captain. Now he was a good captain and scored twice. But still we did not win. It was a game of 30 mins with 2 points per shoot. We ended up being 6-12. Jared from the red team scored four times. He was playing really good. The second half, I was in the red team and we again lost.. bid deal..it was really fun and I can tell now..along with fun it gave us all body aches.

Laser-Tag : Now, this is one game everyone would have heard. I have played it 4 or 5 times before and just love the part I could run a lot, sweat a lot and most of all kill a lot! I was in blue team with the name Jester (Would have luved it to be Fiona..guess I dint have a choice) and scored around 1600 with 35 hits. I was pretty good killing every member of the red team other than Jared..I think he was one fella who killed me most number of times..Overall was really fun except tht I was wearing a full sleeve sweater and burning inside. Took a wrong decision to dress up without realizing how much I would sweat..

Go-Kart : Ahem..Ahem...Now this is something I wont forget coz it gave me bruises over my body. I was in car number 15..n the car was in my favorite color blueeeee. Once on the track..we drove really fast. It was my first time and I did not realize how much fun it is and at the same time how much one has a chance for injury. I wad pretty okee at the start..but then around the finish..I took a bad turn at a curve and crashed the wall with my team lead crashing in from behind first time and then at the next curve Brian crashed in from behind. Now me crashing the wall was bad ..but after these 2 crashed me..my left wrist started aching badly..I never show my pain outside so pretty much said okee to all the guys..dint wanna worry them. I slowly realized my whole left arm was paining as if its sprained. even some portions of waist n thighs starting paining..thought wld be a small thing n ignored it at tht moment where all I could think of is to have fun.

Bowling : Last but not least..we played bowling. Brian n I wanted to bowl and asked Evan n Tim to join us. We were 2 teams: Evan and Team ; Brian n I( happened tht we teams were actually real roomies at work ). I started off pretty decently with 9 n 8 in first 2 shots, but then I had 4 consecutive gutter-balls..bad day I guess..It was my 3rd time playing bowling..and supposedly I was better than this earlier..with just one or two gutter-balls. It so happened it goes straight in the middle for 3/4th distance and then spins and goes to gutter right near the pins. Watever its is I played badly yesterday..My last two shots were fine..with a 9,7 and 7 ( made me feel better I dint end with gutter-balls). but to compensate my bad play, Brian had 4 strikes and a spare..He had 2 gutter-balls on his 1st two shot..so we pretty much balanced each other. Thanks to him our team scored something..I was 40 and he was 103. Meanwhile Evan and Tim were playing so well..Evan had lots of strikes and Tim had lots of spares. Evan topped with 119. Overall was good fun.

It was almost 3:30 and so we decided to leave coz its way past the time we were supposed to be there. Everyone other than Barton, Tim and I came to office to continue to work for a while. Whoa! A really memorable day and I had a greatttttt time!

P. S What I thought was a small pain wasn't small afterall. Went home and found I had 5 bruises..kinda red blood clots.

Work Love Dance

I saw this quote today and thought would write down what it got me to think. The later two are something I knew, I could be really good at. LOVE...its something I can assure or rather carve anywhere and say tht I can do it to fullest. Love is not just the usual cliche ppl think it is..luving some1..that special one...THE GUY...many forget that its also the love u show to people day to day..luv towards friends, family..the nicest feeling anyone can share with anyone...I try my best not to be mean and be luving to every1 everyday n will continue to do so..but there are times I cross the limit and has been mean..wont deny that but atleast I realize my mistake and feel sorry for it...But the point is...yes I like the way its said, love as if ur heart was never broken. Its simple to conquer love for example we could do things like remembering not to judge others, showing empathy and compassion towards others and much more..But can you just love everyone is the question..Thinking about it, its hard sometimes ... I mean can you just love someone no matter what they did or do something to antagonize you or if they are just plain annoying? It depends ...like in my case I have been always weak in such matters..If some1 did annoy me and if I did feel bad, I might stop luving them at tht moment but if the same person comes to me for some help, I would help them readily without thinking twice..so I guess this quote about luv some1 as if ur heart wasn't broken fits for me..

When it comes to dancing...three words from me... I LUV DANCING...I try to dance for myself every now and then..coz dance makes me feel happy...its like me running 100m relay..its like me eating my fav mango sorbet or brownie fudge sundae,..its like me biking really fast...its like me scrapbooking...its like me talking talking n talking and some1 watching keenly n surprisingly as to how I get sooooo involved in talking and lose track of time. I am not trained to dance...but I can do a decent job when taught to dance...but I dont care...I luv freestyle dance and like to play loud music at home and dance to it..I just hope I continue to do it..no matter how old I get and how many kids I have :-D

Now coming to the first part of the quote. Its been a week or 10 days since i replied people back in Orkut..It is and was supposed to be my best place to hang out every day...but what happened to me..I am working all the time...that I do not get time to reply back my good old friends..I have my friends pinging me everyday but these days I don't get time to even reply them back..I know I cant make everyone happy by replying everyone..but I just questioned myself, " Am I really busy or was I taking too much on me for the past few days? "..may be I was just pushing myself hard but atleast I decided that I would make sure to try balancing work and friends like before...but yeah lately I have been concentrating more on work and started luving it more coz its getting more challenging n coz of it, it interests me more to solve it...So sorry ppl for not replying lately...i am not all tht busy bee..just a small phase which I would get out from pretty soon :-D

So yeah there u go..yet another post for my blog. Thanx to the quotes I come across daily..I get to post something once in a while..

I scream, U scream, We all scream for ICE CREAM!

It started yesterday when my officemate started talking about his dinner theater plans and the exclusive dessert menu they are gonna serve them. That's it, I was in office but yet was getting too hungry listening to the different desserts he was mentioning... I decided then n there I am going to have some amazing icecream that day. I thought now this would be more fun if I called over my friends and we went to Coldstone and have it. So yes, I did make a plan as usual...I do a good job planning nething ( but it flops miserably sometimes). Yes, this plan did flop BIG TIME! 1 person backed out last minute but yet I convinced the guys to make it and they did..just to find out Coldstone changed their timing recently to 1 hour earlier which left us on the road. Now I have the patience to go n find out another place open and somehow eat icecream but I dint want the guys to run along with me..so I quickly made a movie plan at my place. but the craving for ice cream was still inside me...i realized it was just me craving for it.

Then, it suddenly strikes in me tht i had a whole tub of my favorite Häagen-Dazs Mango Sorbet at home which I got as back up few days back..now yes I dint get to eat my vanilla topped with chocolate fudge, whipped cream, nuts and cherry over a brownie, but atleast I got to eat another all time fav of mine...so yes I went home...and started eating n watching the movie at the same time. In few minutes I realized I almost finished the whole icecream all by myself with the guys laughing over me since I was eating the icecream like a pregnant lady craving for icecream and finally gets it. But watever it is, craving for icecream can make ppl go nuts..atleast it made me go 1... that at one sitting I finshed the whole icecream...I wrote this blog so I could read it one day n laugh on this..

P.S

I did bike 20 miles the next day so I hope atleast half the calories tht went inside were burnt :-P

Secret of success

Like every day, I started working and and had set up my playlist for the day- my only companion while working so that I don't disturb ne1 by talking, talking and talking! Just like that while I was thinking on y a problem wasnt getting solved, Secret of Success from Boys started playing. According to the first para of the song, Secret of success is the bundle of luck, loss, labor, faith in god,hope and talent. This made me to think a bit and anyways i wanted to take a break and while i was thinking i thought y not just write wat i think..even though most of the times watever i think is just crap..but i guess i luv myself so much tht i am ready to accept the crap i think. So here I am analyzing the song..The best part of the song is when they ask us never to give up until we get wat we want..like reaching a goal..its so very true. Today, if you feel like you are at the end of the road and your situation has left you in a position with no place to turn and you have lost hope then its time for you to try again. If you fail again, then keep trying until you have reached the goal. everything takes determination. May be it takes time to achieve it but if you have determination then surely one of your tries would be a success. I feel self belief and self confidence are really important for making life easier. You just have to grasp opportunities and raise in life and achieve more. The songs say that mistakes are the secret of success. I donno how true it is, but atleast i can say that small and big failures does teach us something at the end of it..Past 3 years I did learn that I should never fear to make mistakes and be scared to take a step thinking I would make a mistake. I have been criticized a lot for this but I feel if i do the something, i will be doing coz i want to do it and not coz some1 wants me to do and if at all i do a mistake I would gracefully accept it coz I was the one who decided to go ahead with some decision. According to me its not a shame to make a mistake (yes i do feel bad for tht instinct y i made one but i do understand it these days better) but a shame not to learn from it. I dont want to be a perfect one all coz some1 told me to follow a set of things so that i never do the mistakes they did. I was always given the easy ways to live the life by my family so tht i dont learn nethign by myself . But i turned out to be one who wanted to learn stuff by trying it out. I like taking challenges and I feel my life wont be worthful if there arent ne challenges and everything is made easier by some1 who cares for me. I luv to be cared, but at the same time luv to be let be myself. May be thats y I turned out to be a rebel or brat. Its three years since I am in US of A and I have gone thro small as well as big challenges and I have got out of them may be not being the best but yet I was out of it in a satisfying manner and learnt a lot out of it.

Till day I do get negative inner voices if I have done the right thing. Many a times, I have called my friends for assurance and all they say is " Ramya if u think its right thing to do...go ahead and once u have taken watever decision it is stick to it. If it turns out good..then nice but if it fails never regret on tht, but try to accept it." Very true. I keep saying this to myself most of the times. Perseverance is something which has been there with me always..i am lucky and feel happy about it...There are 2 characters I always admire n looking at them motivates me..1 is fictional of Tom Hanks in Cast Away..he knew how to live in any circumstances..and came out of it beyond difficulties and survived through the movie..his character is always inspirational for me..The second character is real life one and is Shahrukh khan..now i do like him for his romantic movies..and am crazy abt him..but truth is i like the way he came up in his life...a guy who lost his parents in his early youth came to Bombay with 10 grand and started acting in small soaps and grew up to be the king of bollywood without a support from anyone but just hard work..now this is wat i call never give up attitude..

Now i donno wat crap i wrote in this blog till now, but it does make me feel good to write about something i keep doing always..NEVER GIVE UP on anything.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission

Three days back I was deeply hurt by a friend's words...I started feeling so bad that I cried over it and even shouted ( may be a bit swearing too..ofcourse inside my car..i dont have courage to say nethign directly to ne1) on what and how he said it...I had to go on a drive to make myself get over that. When I came back from the drive, I came across this quote" Nobody can hurt me without my permission" by Mahatma Gandhi. I have this habit of reading a quote a day and putting it on my desk and interestingly I got this on that day. So very apt and made me think about it for 3 days now and I thought y not write a blog about it.

First when I read this sentence, I just thought it was a plain sentence telling us that no one has the right to make me fee like thrash or shit. But when I put more thought to it..I kinda figured out what Gandhi was trying to say. Ofcourse the main meaning that no one other than us can make us feel low. Just think how many times people just criticize without realizing what and how they are saying it to us. These are just individuals whom we meet in our daily life but they can say something which could make us feel shitty and its worse if it is a bad comment that can ruin our day or may be a week. But why does it affect us so badly? They are just words right...and individuals opinion are worth wat u pay for them...supposedly no1 could make me feel low about me besides myself...

I also saw something else Gandhi is trying to say...I shall split the quote for explaining.." Nobody can hurt me" + "except me". This shows that I have all ability to make me feel lower and cause harm to myself. By harm, I mean I could waste a day at work or a wonderful evening I could have had by having fun if not thinking about this crap.(Yes, it has happened to me a lot...I am trying hard not take it personally..but I guess I am way too much sensitive and should work to get rid of this character of mine which I am not at all proud of). anyways..went offtrack. So what happens when u r criticized or u hear something u don't want hear...u start being defensive, self- abusive and talk negativly to one self..

So what could be done about this...To start thinking about urself and appreciate about urself, ur good qualities..ur abilities and disabilities and understand urself better and start luving urself for what u r and care a damn about what others say. I am a person who believes in god, so I can say that God loves me for what I am and been giving me nearly everything I have ever wished for so y do I even care, bother, feel bad and get upset at myself on what people tell to me.

If some1 is critical may be I should start thinking if that statement was true indeed and if so..I should take it as a constructive statement..and think about working on it.. but if it was said in a blunt and rude way and not criticizing..then ask them to get lost...u know urself better than ne1

So basically when I analyzed this quote I just understood it meant " I am in control of my life and no 1 else". I have all right to decide all thoughts and reaction in my life and even if its a mundane stuff or a major , we are the only one who could decide and act to everything and importantly to everybody. I hope to work on this hereafters and see how much it helps me. I do need to improvise myself in several aspects and since something like this happ few days back I feel this is something important I should give priority to.

" Nobody can hurt me without my permission "

~ Take care
Ramya