Friday 31 October 2008

Trance News: It Was Hard to Take the Day Off

All five of my Eid holidays were spent coughing and coughing and coughing some more. It was an inexplainably nasty cough. I took anti-biotics all 5 days but the medicine failed to budge the intensity of the cough. In all this juddering and jostling the five days holiday was over but i was in no position to go out of the house. I was restricted as i never knew when a sever pang of cough would attack and leave me helpless. ;-)

I was told by my family (Mum, Dad & Sisters) to take the following Monday off (the holidays were from Wednesday to Sunday of the previous week). I was very hesitant about it. The words of my Operations Manager and HR person were echoing in my mind. They had said that if somebody took the Monday off then instead of one, six holidays would be cut from the leave balance. Not having many leaves in store, i didn't want my satchel to get empty all too soon and all at once. ;-)

But then i had to do what i had to do. I didn't have much choice. So i called up my Operations Manager and told him about my sickness. I assured him that i will try to be there on Tuesday, but at the same time told him that I couldn't make a commitment due to my unpredictable medical condition. He seemed very much reluctant and hesitant to say 'yes' to my plea but he did.

During all this time that i was on phone with him, i felt like a criminal. I felt guilty of committing and offense or breaking a law by asking for leave that day. That was one of the hardest times, taking leave from office. Hope i never have to do it like this ever again.

Trance News: Wasted Days Wasted Nights

Since i had got so many holidays for the Eid, i was kind of overwhelmed. I planed of a trillion tasks to do in those 5 days. I made such a brilliant plan in my mind that everything seemed achievable, if done in sequence and the prescribed duration of time. Some of the typical tasks included doing my laundry, cleaning the clutter in my room, vacuuming the carpet, reading up some material, searching for some relevant stuff on the Internet, watching a couple of movies, resting to my hearts content, lazing around in a relaxing mode and sleeping to my hearts desire. [Ok so these are not actually a trillion tasks, but when i was planning these looked likes so ;-) hehe] But i couldn't do even a single one. All i managed to do in these five days was to grow my cough, kill friendly bacteria inside me [antibiotics kill the good bacteria along with the bad ones :'( ] and develop a strange pain at the bottom of my rib cage. Not only this, but i managed to disturb the hell out of my family members during nights and succeeded in making my Mom worried a lot.

My mother felt she couldn't do much to ease my uneasiness/restlessness/pain so got more and more worried. I kept advising her to put some ear plugs in her ears so that she wouldn't hear the cough. Neither she would hear the coughing and nor would she worry. ;-) hehe But she didn't listen. You know mothers.

So this is how my days got wasted and my nights got wasted. But then i kept saying to myself that once i cross this bridge of unexpected illness, i would move like lightening and fill up all my gaps.

Stay tuned for the next posts to find out. ;-) hehe

Thursday 30 October 2008

Trance News: Eidee Stuff

I bagged a lot of eidee. >:-) heh heh heeee I felt like a pirate (lady pirate?) who had found a big pile of loot hidden in a treasure chest. And the treasure chest now belonged to her. The pirate didn't even have to fight for it as everybody just handed it over without any hue or cry. Arrrrr!

Well the eidee episode did not end here. This time i not only grabbed the loot from others but distributed a part of wealth amongst the young ones as well. I had already done that in office the day before. On Eid day, i bestowed this pleasure on family, that included my sisters & my cousins. I was actually the oldest one around so ALL the little kids deserved a share in my loot (some of the "little kids" being in their twenties ;-) hehe). I hope they were content with the share they were given. Maybe next year i can raise the eidee rate a bit. ;-)

Trance News: Eid Day

The Eid day was good. Everything about it was fun. The eidee, the sawayyan, the yummy food cooked by my Dadi Jan and the family get togethers. The only thing that was not good was the fact that i was unable to enjoy all this to the full. I couldn't enjoy much because of my 'much hyped' cough. I was keeping quiet and not eating much either to prevent any irritation in my throat (that would in turn cause a cough chain reaction). I was not succeeding much but i kept trying. And that is how the day was spent battling the uncontrollable, irritating, dreadful cough amidst all the Eid festivities. In the end i was pretty beat up, but at least I survived. ;-)

Trance News: Last Roza of Ramzan 2008

On September 30, 2008 (Tuesday) we had the 29th rooza. Till evening there was an air of mystery that whether it is going to be the last one or do we have one more after it. We waited till the aftari time. Right after breaking our fast we all (at home) ran outside to try to spot the crescent. We tried hard to see the moon. Searched high and low on the sky. Looked without glasses and with them. But to no avail. We couldn't spot anything that looked even remotely like a crescent.

We gave up and came inside. Then we tied our hopes with the idiot box. We knew that sooner or later the news would be announced by the Rooat e Hilal. At first they announced a negative of no Eid. But then some time later when everybody has absorbed the shock, they shocked yet again by announcing Eid for the next day.

And that is how the holy month of Ramzan of year 2008 came to an end. :-D hehe

Trance News: Eidee @ Office

The title might mislead you to believe that we were given Eidee by the office authorities. Well let me set the records straight. Nothing of the sort happened. We were glad that they were allowing at least all those days as holiday on Eid, as declared by the government of Pakistan. ;-) And they were acting like 'Hatim Tai' for allowing us 5 days away from office. (It was a coincidence that the holiday block was meeting our weekend to make the grand holiday total to five.)

I was the eldest among us girls, so i gave away Eidee to the young ones. ;-) Then AP did the same for the ones younger than her. She was so sweet to offer it to me as well but being older, i couldn't take it (my rules). There was a tie between Pilot and Amm T. Pilot was the youngest of us all, Amm T being a couple of months older. Pilot kept insisting and asking for Eidee from Amm T, but Amm T won in the end and got away with not having to give out Eidee to Pilot. ;-) hehe

This little activity was fun too. We kept the traditions alive even in the office environment. It was sweet.

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Trance News: Girls, Mehandi & Eid Celebrations @ Office

The day before the Eid, we the girls in the office had our own celebration (amidst the shifting of office). I was supposed to bring some 'mehandi' but i had left office so late the previous day that couldn't manage it. But not to worry, we got mehandi. After all we are a whole gang of girls. :-)

Since our computers were disconnected and all packed up, there was not much we could do. So after doing our part in the shifting (of our stuff) we moved to our prayer room to celebrate. Well we chose that room since it had a lot of open space and a carpet. So we could easily move around.
We took our places and started off.

We were four, so two started applying mehandi on hands of the other two. I was among the first batch to get my hands painted. I not only enjoyed the feeling of the mehandi slowly touching my hand but also enjoyed the fact that it was turning into a nice flowery pattern.
Here is what my hand looked like:

My Mehandi Adorned Hand

One of our pals had to leave as it was time for her ride home. It was bad letting her go away with bare hands (mehandi-less), but we had no choice. She went and we three were left.


Then came my turn to apply mehandi on another friend's hand. I was the worst of us all. Rather they were good and i was the only highly unskilled person who couldn't even make a neat curve, let alone a straight line. But i did my best (as much as i could do). So here is how our hands looked in the end (I am sure you all would spot which one was done by me):

Our Hands

It was a short span of time for us to enjoy. And in that short span too we had to hurry. But this little adventure of ours was fun. It also gave us a head start in the Eid preparations. So here is how girls start Eid celebrations using mehandi in an office. ;-)

Monday 20 October 2008

3 Weeks in a Trance

It’s been nearly 3 weeks that I have been acting like a tortoise as far as my online activities are concerned. I was no faster in my offline tasks either, but online I have just been a slug. In these three weeks many things have happened. Like:

- First there was Eid. And I got 5 days off on this occasion.

- I took a day off to try to get better and get rid of my nasty cough (didn’t work).

- My sister came from Norway.

- I started work after Eid in the new company office on a different floor. We had already shifted to the 2nd floor from the third a day before the holidays. But that time the office was not functional and was just a mess.

- I got my 3 fiscal year completion bonus from the company. (Boy did I get rich! hehe)

- A new guy joined my QA team.

- Another guy “ran away” from my QA team.

- My sister left for Norway after a week.

- I interviewed a person who was around 50 years old, for my team. He had 10 years of experience only in QA while the total work experience spread over 30 years. (WOW & Phew!)

- I shortlisted two freshers to join my team as an experiment (No I will not play with their future at all. Rather maybe they will find something great here in my team.).

- I became ‘The Hulk Bee’ on PuzzleBee on Facebook.

- My blog got 4000 hits (The day I was planning to celebrate and glorify, but missed. Better luck next time when the blog gets 5000 hits ;-) hehe).

- I finally got an acceptance from the Islamabad Metblogs captains to start writing for that blog.

- I attended a wedding and witnessed a fusion of Pakistani and Afghani cultures.

- Our neeli pari (car) got hit yet again from behind by a green number plated car while my sister was driving it to work.

If I think some more, I might remember other “events” as well that happened during all this quiet time. But I shouldn’t bore you anymore. Let me start out with my dramatic depiction of several of these above mentioned items.

Happy Birthday Beta, October 2008

Today is the birthday of a dearest pal of mine. So in her honour, i am dedicating this post to her. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Beta :-D

Many Happy returns of the day. May each year that you have in your life be more wonderful than the previous one. May Allah shower His blessings on you always. May He bestow upon you all the goodness of this life and the hereafter.

Lots of love, Aunty. :-D

Monday 13 October 2008

Greetings :-)

Greetings to everybody who has continuously been visiting my blog in my absence. Greetings to those as well who stumbled upon my blog once or twice, by accident, by chance or by will. I was away for almost 2 weeks and had started missing it all. Actually i was attacked by a dreadful cough that has still not spared me, but i am 95% fine now.

8 days long dose of anti-biotics, more than a dozen Strepsils, similar number of vitamin c tablets, a bottle of cough syrup, a few cups of homemade 'qehav' and a few sachets of Johar Joshanda seem to have finally worked. Maybe if i had not missed out on the gargles, as advised by many family members as well as the doctor, i would have gotten better sooner.

But whatever state i may be in right now, i am here. Will take a couple of days to get back in the groove but i am sure i will be able to do it quickly.


Keep visiting you all! ;-)

Thursday 2 October 2008

Eid & Unity

There was a really positive side to celebrating Eid ul Fitr on Wednesday, October 01, 2008. It marked the unity among all four provinces of Pakistan. Usually it happens that some provinces celebrate Eid on one day and the rest celebrate it on another. There were small exceptions this time too, but majority started Ramzan together and celebrated Eid on the same day. May this unity keep flourishing. :-)

Emergency Eid

Seems whatever we have been doing lately, we have started doing it in an 'emergency'. Finish the office tasks in emergency. Deliver the final product in emergency. Make preparations for an event or occasion in an emergency. We even have mehandi (henna) that says on its label ‘emergency’.

In this hour of emergency we didn’t even spare the Eid. We had it sort of kind of in an emergency. Everybody was on the lookout of the Shawwal moon right from the ‘aftari’ time on the 29th fast of Ramzan. We couldn’t see anything. Then we all were glued to the screens of the idiot box to see if we might catch a glimpse of the news from any news channel, saying its Eid the next day. All we kept seeing was that the moon was not sighted in any major city of Pakistan. We all waited and waited and waited for good news. But nothing happened.

I for one lost all hope around 10 p.m. and took to PuzzleBee on Facebook. I kept busy for an hour or so. Then suddenly I heard my sister saying that it is Eid the next day. It was unexpected and I didn’t know how to react. At first I was bit annoyed that why was it announced so late. But then I accepted the fact and turned my mind to the ‘festive’ mode. ;-)

I did spend the Eid day with enthusiasm and fervour. Had fun amidst my coughing and sneezing. Had a variety of eatables, both sweet & salty and enjoyed every meal. But I still kept thinking that we are celebrating this Eid in an "emergency". ;-)