So, since I posted last, its been a quite time...workwise, its going well-papers published, kinda taken to the commute, and completed 5 years at UCSF, so I'm vested now! Yeah!
Anyways, the girls are in school-4th and Kinder-big deal as it is a single drop-off and pick-up. I guess, I should be going into this blog more now. Since Arya started playing softball 2 years ago, I've kept score for the team and got into its heiroglyphics. Of course, 2010 was sports-changing here in the Bay Area-the SF Giants won the World Series. We all got into watching the Giants on TV and keeping tabs their games. On Halloween while going around collecting candies checking the scores on Rob's Blackberry. Everytime they won, my spirits soared. Every loss was personal. It was like I was back in India again-following cricket-my first love in sports. After that, I follow the Giants obsessively...though I haven't yet been to AT&T park even though it is just a walk away from the Caltrain station which I use everyday, twice a day.
Thanks to my Droid X, I can keep checking their scores and learn more about their transfers and newcomers.
Now, the Giants are 8.5 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks and there are only 14 games left. Will they make it to the postseason? Suspense or as Giants fans say-Torture!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Thursday, July 9, 2009
As I talked to Dad today
Internet connection in India is pretty dicey. For the last couple of days I hadn't heard anything as in emails from Mom n Dad so I called them this morning. While talking with Dad he recommended that I start blogging my thoughts on how things seem during these transitional times...so here goes.
Sanket and I have had a rosy outlook on life in general. Since we came to America, it has continued. We landed in Virginia, and with a year-old Arya with us we were ready to try new pastures. It took us to South Dakota! Its only later that we found out that SD was one of those fly-by states and people on the East/West coast sometimes thought it didn't even exist in the U S.
Anyways, life was pretty fun those days, adjusting to American English and also telling the natives there that we were Indians from India not America, so didn't belong to the various tribes.
I got a post-doc position within 3 weeks of landing in Vermillion (pop. <10,000). Within 6 months we bought our own peice of America buying a 5-bedroom home and lived happily in it for 2 years. I went to Greece and Denmark for conferences, published 2 papers, but the lack of diversity was affecting us all. We had been to California to visit with Monish and were awed by the place. We wanted to save and move there as soon as we could. In-laws moved in and Mili was born. It became pretty clear that we couldn't all survive in SD and they wanted to go back to the East Coast with their own temples, and community. They all moved to Scranton, PA. They invited us over too and we thought a change will help. So we sold our home which went in 3 days -those were the days! and moved with 50 boxes and our first car to PA. But within 2 weeks it was certain that we could never live there. So up and about we went again, with a 4-year old Arya and 5-month old Mili to California-land of our dreams.
Just like that-with no jobs for either of us. Can't even nightmare of it nowadays.
But we just knew Silicon Valley would have something for us-even though we both were not in the IT field. I got my job within 3 weeks and Sanket took time-off to raise Mili. Infant daycare was exhorbitant.
Since I got the job all I wanted was to change it. I am not complaining about the position itself. It was in UCSF-in Prusiner lab the Nobel Prize winning scientist working on Mad-cow disease, but the commute was long-took 3 hours of my day-everyday. We live in Mountain View-40 miles away.
So I was trying to get into some lab/start-up closer by.
But since September 2008-after being in UCSF for 2 years, I completely stopped. Froze as the economy took its nose-dive. I don't even open Craigslist anymore. Since then I have been happy just to have this job-sometimes the experiences I hear on KQED/NPR everyday makes me even guilty of having a job.
Everyone is losing their jobs like mosquitoes being swatted in summer in India!
Everyone is changing professions. Marathon timings have improved as the unemployed find more time to train. Every volunteer position is filled. Teach for America/Peace Corps are overflowing with applications. I do feel for the new graduates entering the job market.
I used to like to hear the Wall Street going down-thinking about all the greedy pigs who would be losing their dollars, but since Stan told us that we were funded almost 50% by that money-now I find myself praying it keeps up.
more later...
Sanket and I have had a rosy outlook on life in general. Since we came to America, it has continued. We landed in Virginia, and with a year-old Arya with us we were ready to try new pastures. It took us to South Dakota! Its only later that we found out that SD was one of those fly-by states and people on the East/West coast sometimes thought it didn't even exist in the U S.
Anyways, life was pretty fun those days, adjusting to American English and also telling the natives there that we were Indians from India not America, so didn't belong to the various tribes.
I got a post-doc position within 3 weeks of landing in Vermillion (pop. <10,000). Within 6 months we bought our own peice of America buying a 5-bedroom home and lived happily in it for 2 years. I went to Greece and Denmark for conferences, published 2 papers, but the lack of diversity was affecting us all. We had been to California to visit with Monish and were awed by the place. We wanted to save and move there as soon as we could. In-laws moved in and Mili was born. It became pretty clear that we couldn't all survive in SD and they wanted to go back to the East Coast with their own temples, and community. They all moved to Scranton, PA. They invited us over too and we thought a change will help. So we sold our home which went in 3 days -those were the days! and moved with 50 boxes and our first car to PA. But within 2 weeks it was certain that we could never live there. So up and about we went again, with a 4-year old Arya and 5-month old Mili to California-land of our dreams.
Just like that-with no jobs for either of us. Can't even nightmare of it nowadays.
But we just knew Silicon Valley would have something for us-even though we both were not in the IT field. I got my job within 3 weeks and Sanket took time-off to raise Mili. Infant daycare was exhorbitant.
Since I got the job all I wanted was to change it. I am not complaining about the position itself. It was in UCSF-in Prusiner lab the Nobel Prize winning scientist working on Mad-cow disease, but the commute was long-took 3 hours of my day-everyday. We live in Mountain View-40 miles away.
So I was trying to get into some lab/start-up closer by.
But since September 2008-after being in UCSF for 2 years, I completely stopped. Froze as the economy took its nose-dive. I don't even open Craigslist anymore. Since then I have been happy just to have this job-sometimes the experiences I hear on KQED/NPR everyday makes me even guilty of having a job.
Everyone is losing their jobs like mosquitoes being swatted in summer in India!
Everyone is changing professions. Marathon timings have improved as the unemployed find more time to train. Every volunteer position is filled. Teach for America/Peace Corps are overflowing with applications. I do feel for the new graduates entering the job market.
I used to like to hear the Wall Street going down-thinking about all the greedy pigs who would be losing their dollars, but since Stan told us that we were funded almost 50% by that money-now I find myself praying it keeps up.
more later...
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