Sysdate

Today I dreamed that I was visiting my brother in LA meeting his friends and then I have this deja vu like feeling and I start predicting what will happen next. I keep asking my brother what the date is and he says its 'sysdate'. I ask him again, 'No, no, tell me the year'. He says the same thing, sysdate. Then he notices that whatever I am predicting is coming true. Like, I say this friends brother will turn up in sometime and he does. And then I say this line 'I have seen all this happen before. And its not happened in the past. Its from the future'. Thats when I woke up.

Reunion

This friend of mine is visiting from US and she suggested that we organize a college reunion. Five years since we graduated, it will be interesting to meet everyone. This isn't a school reunion and everyone is more or less in the same profession so I was wondering what parameters they might use to judge others. I mean take any reunion movie, the nerds become super rich, the not so pretty turn into beautiful swans and the bullies end up as real life losers. We were all nerdy so its slightly harder to identify a 'success story'.

Here is a list of parameters I could come up with (I don't necessarily use these to judge others)

Is married

Married college sweet heart

Has kids

Living abroad

Studied further

Survived recession

Owns a Car

Owns a house

Gave up job to pursue dream/passion

Excelled in any other field
Aged well

I score pretty less in all above departments (except maybe the last one) but then I am not competing :P
Also while listing this I realized we often use such parameters to judge people we don't know well but not our close friends. Our friends, we revel in their success however small and grieve for their losses. For us they are always winners. Next time I brand someone as a failure, I'll remember that person could have been a friend.

Read-Only

Observing people is what I do best, I love being the bystander watching the world go by. I have been on read-only mode for past few days on twitter and facebook and I recommend that you do it too sometime. Resist that urge to say something and let others have their say. If you can manage to filter out the noise you will find people who inspire, people who do make a difference. Even conversations (between others) seem more interesting, many a times we are so bent upon getting our point across we fail to understand what others want to convey. As a silent observer, its easier to be non judgemental and unbiased. The downside of this read-only behaviour is that I tend to get too passive and derive amusement out of this rather than going out there and doing something myself. But once in a while, it is good to shut up and just listen.

My dog who unexpectedly fell sick was put to sleep today after 2 long weeks of suffering. Miss you B.