So three days in and my spreadsheet's lookin' hot and spicy with context switches, multitasking, cancelled meetings, travel and time ofF. The other interesting thing I noticed was how much email keeps coming in. Not the generic reports that auto-appear in the junk mail box or deleted items, I mean real mails I need to pay attention to. And honestly until around 11:30 pm each night and up to 7 am each morning, I think the rate of emails I receive is around 45 per 5 minute increment. I find this kind of KPI exciting, now I can really hunker down and filter and prioritize and measure actual impact. Now I can also explain to f&f (family and friends) why I never reply to their chain mail forwards. Yay! Human Optimization Tactics -- that's HOT!

 

Next on my list is to streamline my communication with something similar to good old-fashioned use cases. I guess if I figure out who needs to consume what data from the various branches of reporting and how to get that into a simplified and clear format, I can spend less time writing that kind of stuff.

 

(Context switch)

 

Ok, nuff work stuff. I have been getting lots of nightmares lately. Don't know why. I think it has to do with kind of feeling root-less. Please submit words of affection whereby I am the object of said affection, and/or information about plants that grow without roots to this blog if you feel like helping me let go of the nightmares. Thanks.

 

Ciao for now, kids!

 

 

 

Ok, this is going to be dramatic. It already kicked off with oohs and aahs  and moans and groans, but deep inside, we're glad she's doing it. What am I talking about? Well, for the next 7 days, Dalene has us reporting in 5 minute increments on what exactly we're doing. And we can be on vacation, or have a hallway convo, or IM or whatever! She's trying to help our management see how overburdened we are with program work and interruptions, and how frequently we have to context-switch so that we could optimize the work and experience work/life balance again. Its cool that they're doing this.

 

I already context switched twice since this morning. I am going to context switch again now (I think... or maybe its just a tangent. Whatever.):

 

I always have this overworking problem, which I think is an addiction I inherited from my mom. My dabby used to be balanced. He did things on time, and then relaxed the right amount. Since he's been gone for the past 12 years, I get the feeling that he lived the right amount too. He never had to see Paris Hilton screw up a generation of potentially intelligent women with her role-modeling. That would have upset him deeply. He never had to hear about how Monsanto began experimenting with cross-breeding vegetables with fish and other creatures. He would have said "Oh, no wonder we're having a weight issue. Let's grow everything here at home and eat off our own land." Not that he wouldn't have wanted me to eat fish, which I do, but that cross-breeding could introduce new energies into our diet that we may not be aware of - the unknown impacts. Am I talking about food again?

 

Context switch or tangent again...

(Chandan walked in with a Security textbook.) Chandan just told me he's taking a Security class for his Master's in CS. He also proceeded to whiteboard how easy it is to break DES and 2DES. I asked him if he'd study buddy with me for CISSP, and he said totally. Cool.

 

Ok back to work now. I'll keep checking in and letting you know how the 5 minute intervals are going.

 

A thought: If I have 60,000 thoughts per day, that means I have 41.6 thoughts per minute (208 thoughts per 5 minutes) and I need to focus on one to two of those thoughts per 5 minutes. How limiting! I want to use more of my brain, not less!

 

 

 

So I went home to MI to hang with the famms and prep for Nisha Choksi's premiere dance show as a solo artist. Arangetrams, as they are known, are far more difficult to orchestrate than the flashiest MTV Sweet 16 episode and Made episode combined. Yet the girls themselves are amazing, humble and outstanding human beings. Nisha and I sat in the basement working on bullets for her to memorize her last minute choreography enhancements, courtesy of Mom, while everyone else was enjoying fireworks from 4 different cities outside on her deck. She turned out to be so impressive on stage. When we finished making her up on Arangetram morning, I kept teasing her that she wasn't Gujju anymore, rather she morphed into Malathi Subramaniam. Ha ha! Her best numbers were Sri Rama Raghurama Sabdam, written by Gopal and beautifully acted out scene by scene by a very expressionally mature Nisha. The bow-breaking sequence was enhanced by Jim's Guitar and Jeyasingham's drums; and I also loved the work she did on her folk number, the Matki dance, nicely accompanied by Prabha's veena.

What I enjoyed outside of Nisha's dancing and effervescent personality, was what came to be known as The Arangetram Sisters. Tiasha, Mallika and Riya got up there and narrated and mimed the history of B.N. and Hindu Temple Rhythms from Lord Shiva's dance right down to Daddy marrying and moving mom to Canada. They were beautiful and funny, even mom laughed at some of their rendition. At the end they honored the work that a student like Nisha has to do to make it up there on stage dancing for 3 hours and they wished her as her Arangetram sisters, which was so cute. I think this will end up being a fixture in our shows now; it was unique, independent and a nice depiction of Bharata Natyam's storytelling abilities.

 

Ok, it continued to be Showtime in Vidyaland, because I went on my hotmail and found out my little cousin, Poonzie, is in a seriously hot video: http://www.bhangrachick.com/ . Check her out. She's the hottie in black with the frequent closeups. Nice pix of her on her facebook too. I had so much fun hanging out with her at Muldoon's after practice one night last week. Some guy was playing acoustic guitar and singing medleys of my fave classic rock, and I went to sit in front of him and enjoy the music when he did a Doors medley (you know how I feel about the Doors!) He asked me my name and changed all the words to Riders on the Storm, to say "Diya loves her man..." and then he told everyone it was my 18th b'day and someone should buy me a shot... and when I went back to Poonie, someone had!! She was cracking up. Plus we had sweet blueberry martinis and talked a ton about life, survival and love. She is amazing.

 

Showtime continued after these two fun events... Sunday morning 8 am, we got two girls all dolled up for another photo shoot at Al's. Pavitra and Pallavi looked gorgeous, even in the 100 degree weather. It was so hot! Pavs got her eyebrows done (by me) for the 1st time.. no Krithi, she didn't cry like you; no one ever has. And both of them rocked their photo session, nailing pose after pose with precision and swiftness. I was really surprised in a very positive way. Kids sure do grow up fast.

 

I stayed in a hotel this week, since it was just better with the weather and the noise and people everywhere, for me to have a quiet, cool, place to sleep and work and think. I am glad I did that and so grateful to Nisha's folks for picking up the tab. I think for me to do a good job on the shows, it matters that I control the conditions where I stay so i can prep and practice and be ready. This last show went so well, I am really pleased and enthusiastic about the next couple....

 

Which brings me to the next part of the Showtime in Vidyaland series. What? You say, how can you keep going? This was one weekend? Yup and a really long one. So Sunday after the shoot, I checked out of my hotel and wheeled myself back to Mom's for another rehearsal, this one for Nandita and Vidhya's show next week. Wow, they looked good. All the positions and expressions have really evolved and they have excellent stage presence. The orchestra got together and they were really awesome to px the very next morning after the night of Nisha and the major dance and music and food afterparty that she threw.

 

Then I got on a plane, flew home and went back to my fave thing of all... being a Security Superheroine at MS. Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday. Check out Bhangrachich on the link above, some pix to the left of the screen from the Nisha pre-getram Bell Puja and then sleep tight. We patch all your servers starting tomorrow evening, so you can feel safe and peaceful.

 

:)

 

Vidya Akka.