Apr

Summary: 

Apr has been a great month.
At work, I have been consistently trying to learn. Main wins are learning about TQ sigs better and UA and looker.

With Z, we've been going on walks in the evening and it's been a time for us to connect. She's learning a few things , becoming cuter by the day but also being a devil sometimes. Still breastfeeding, some good days of sleep. Oh we're having 80%+ success rate with car seats. 

At home, we cooked - mostly quick and easy healthy stuff. Rat helped and we also ordered out a few times. A briyani we had from shef was spectacular. and homemade veg and egg puffs.

For fun, we went to Seattle and met a bunch of people. We had TYCTW day. 

For red tape, we did tax, some CA.

For health, very few days of cardio, otherwise it's just Seattle days, morning walks etc.

Reading has been good - chanced upon a good book.

Distractions - not bad I'd say - the focus dissolves the distractions away.

Extracurricular -  won a networking competition, and practiced it a bit.

What did you change/practice today?

1st : Had people over and spent time with them
2nd : ---------
3rd : spoke with friends and shared some verbal positivity. printed my habit sheet.  sent networking requests. bought Z stuff / swim stuff. Focus on work. Cooked. 
4th : ------
5th : trying to work
6th : trying to work inspite of loss of sleep, and Zaya's screaming and messiness. presentation. Lav 

7th : worked a bit, applied leaves, went for a stroll, and started meeting people and having food

7,8,9 - 3 days of social life, walking around, art and food.

10, 11, 12 - Z walks / playground / calls with AJ family / periods / library card / basic cooking / laundry

13 - little work ua / batter + pattani / seeds / little work ticket

17 - felt like I was slipping into depression, went for a core conditioning class and moved and feel hopeful. Took a nap.

19 and 20 - some work on presentation that went well. read a little on mentoring.

20 - 28 - work progressed, tyctw day,

30 - hiked to waterfall in topanga 

Happiness :

- got a spa day planned by Rat at the Bel Air spa. In other words, hollywood treatment :D. It was good , more painful and therefore more engaging than other massages I've had. We went to the culver steps area , had wrapster wrap and icecream from salt and straw.
- sometime over Whatsapp with friends just feeling oneness and asking for focus and goodness for us.
- Mini ka, Yuvan, Tarun, good food from abiruchi
- stressful day but views from the flight that made me wonder how one can explain So many hues of bright beautiful orange in the sky. Later in the night it was the stars. In between I had some moments playing the puzzle that was meant for Zaya.
- Zaya calls Scooter - Toto. She lifts her hand when she enjoys music, so gracefully and moves it around. She moves her hands around and explains things in babble language. She loves to hold the phone and talk through it. She even recognizes the hotel phones and talks through it. She is drawn towards instruments. Monkey see monkey do is her thing now. Like she just coughed three times with her hand on her mouth right after I did it :D
- gave my best for the presentation
- Rat and I danced for London thumakda in the room 
- appa is getting better, d is progressing. 

- happiness is relative. the last few days were stressful because of deadlines, and loss of sleep and travel and Zaya messing up the entire hotel room and hunger and meetings where I had to respond but Z was screaming to my ears, pulling my hair and jumping around. So today I took the day off, made the bed, got the room vacummed , threw the trash, put things away in the hotel closet and it's a much better start to what could be a great day made. Oh I also got a bath and gave her a wipe. Feeling clean is a good thing.

- Experienced Seattle downtown. Met Arundyoti and Manish and went to the cherry blossom - ate at Kanishk and Molly. Met Swetha, Venky and little Vyom and went to the pike place , the gumball, ate at Kastoori grill and chilled at a coffee shop. Met Rafi and went to a donuts place and the park around. Met Rohit, Pankhuri and Varad and went to a fancy thai place. 

We then went to the art museum. We also visited Chihuly Glass to buy some gifts and Pankhuri got me this cute Ostrich from the art shop. 

- It was lovely to hear Pankhuri's passion for arts , art museums can be boring but to get over the curiosity it's best done with people who like to see it. It reminds me how natural it is for children to take colors and mix them and try something and how as adults we tend to see it as a waste of time. My other brain also thought about the ROI of this profession.

- It was lovely to see the gumball wall and swetha's love for it. Lovely lovely colorful flowers at the Pike place market.

- the trees in Seattle are beautiful, outside the thai restaurant the tree looked so beautiful, so many hues. all of Seattle looks like a painting to me.

- when your legs are sore and you did too much on the first day of your period, the ability to go to sleep and be warm is the best feeling ever.

- sleep during periods

- the simple and amazing breakfast that is bread omlette - had twice - with extra green chillies.

- for a brief moment mom was around in my dream. These dreams are very rare and so quite precious.

- had another weird funny dream where I was going in what looked like a tutu train around chennai city and my friends jumped off the train and slid into a pool resort and then still got back to the train. 

- Was at hrblock when one old lady from the other cubicle gravitated to Zaya and said 'how precious' and her eyes twinkled. Her soul shined.

- won a networking competition. I met a bunch of people I don't know if I'll meet them again. I was casual with them, got to know a little about who they were, what they did. I guess that's good in flexing the networking muscle and getting over any inhibitions. I would like to also see and learn how I can make networking effective - but maybe it does not have to be effective - maybe all I did was enough. I got to meet a PM, a research scientist, an audit analyst, a data scientist and a Security Manager, a journalist so far and I have a bunch more people to meet.

- I also have access to mentors on the platform and this is something I can exercise as well.

- Z has been trained to sit in the back seat. I just have to sneak into the car and sit on the front seat and act like I don't exist. Then I just get to see the chemistry between her and her dad, then playing music and she voicing a few words, and him bribing her with some wafers. It's so much fun to hand over some wafers without letting her know it's mom who's doing it. 

- she likes to take anything that looks like a bag , hold it on her shoulder and say bahbye and leave the room. She loves bags.  

- Oh Z now knows to point to her head , eyes , nose, mouth as we say the words, but nose his her favorite and she prefers the singular lol. Point at the nose and say 'No'

- Spoke with Godwin. I'm not sure how good a friend I am or how friendly people feel about me, and even though I only talk to him once in many many months, he's someone I share a bond with - the ease with which we can hit it off no matter what the gap is. His humility, his constant progress in whatever he pursues - it's all great to hear about. 

- I've been looking for a book that breaks down money for me. Someone left a set of books in a box for others to take - I took the book by Tony robbins on money. It's written in a passionate style and has a lot of examples of both how one can go wrong as well as a few go right. I hope I can get to the end of the book and come out with actions.

Z in her pretty dress that Kala perima made for her.

Food

Did not keep track of a food section but we cooked simple stuff for the most part. Between AJ and I we had things going. Lots of idlis and dosas. And Seattle was full of restaurant food. And a few weekends here too, we had food outside.

Learning

Victor Cheng : on how the world is increasingly noisier and how logic is therefore a necessary skill and a strong skill. data can always speak.

Forem networking : understanding OKRs , skip, team mate collaboration

HBR book on mentoring: 

A mentor can help, a sponsor/protege relationship is much more than mentorship. It's when someone trusts they can pull you up and you exceed their expectations making it a win-win relationship. It needs loyalty, communication and impact. Interest.

Binge watched a show called how to get rich and when I started it I actually thought it would be all people with poor choices and a reality show. While that's partly true, there's a lot of stuff I could learn from it. 

One multifamily living - asset as investment. 

About how housing is more a peer pressure thing than actually being 'rich'

Other how gambling/ trading is all stupid. No Robinhood.

About how you need an advisor by hour and never 1% of your money. 

About vanguard having good rates. 

Also about different couples and their ideas about money. The concept of 'our money' instead of 'my money' which is a very hard concept for me.

Reading the tony robbins book. So far, what I've learnt (and it's just the very beginning)..

- your dream life is on the other side of the jungle. the jungle has some dangerous things and the best way to get through it is having a set of trusted people who ask 'what do we not know?'

- anticipation is the ultimate power

- complexity is the enemy of execution. we don't take decisions and live with decisions taken for us.

- when a man with experience meets a man with money, they switch what they have

- best bargains are at the points of maximum pessimism

- big risk does not mean big rewards, big risk means big risk. 

- automate savings

- don't rely on advisors or mutual funds. be aware of hidden fees

- you should know how to survive and make profit in all seasons.

Menopause:

the hormones : DHEA, oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone and how they fluctuate and can cause havoc and the need to be aware of this lack of control of our emotions from the context of chemical changes.

Food:

Did not keep track of much. Was not super consistent - just tired or off most of the days.

Rat made : great egg curry and cauliflower

Me : dhal, collards, pattani

Out: a lot , Shangai noodle place, soba place, Seattle places and a lot of the usual places. 

Thoughts:

When I talk about Z, the times I can't match the pristine beauty of her innocent love I sometimes feel like an imposter - and that - I try and voice out. But, the times I'm filled with a feeling, where my eyes are fully open, my entire curiosity is on her and only her, when my self smiles in a way it does not always smile I don't always know how to voice that out. 

Same with the feeling of momma - I felt like reaching out to her 'Life's little instruction book' to read a page for inspiration and even though it was a conscious decision I saw her handwriting "Dear little darlings Anu and Dheeru" and something deep struck inside and I'm unable to voice it. It's not a sad feeling but it involves tears. I can't call it a happy feeling either, but it's a very deep feeling that there's something inside you always connected to something you can't hold or feel or touch but is one of the truest things you know and in a way you have this one way of connecting to her.

Sadness:

- it was hard to manage Z and work. Some days I work too much and I can still never be good at work or as a mom and that's fine.

- Lost my phone on the flight and spent the worst 3 hours I've experienced in the longest time. Some of the staff were just not trained to handle the situation and it got me quite angry. I was pissed about having to buy a new phone, a new sim, change all my passwords, not being able to log into work. 5 minutes back I had my phone. 5 minutes later it's gone and one of the staff was eye-rolling and got a piece of my mind. It did not have to be so stressful but I was in a bad space. I wanted to channel my anger towards some people. At one point I did ask myself is any of this anger serving anything. is it going to actually solve the problem? For a second I also considered why not try and conserve your goodness and not let others actions degrade your goodness. so these were two thoughts that needed a lot of mental exercise to get to but they were also indicative of how easily adrenaline can get you to your evil side. 

- Dalai lama - such a dissonance in my mind - even though I'm well aware that evil hides behind the faces that look like they only mean good - it's a shocker. Why do we follow anyone or trust or try to gain inspiration from anyone? It's these facades that the most disgusting live behind. Such a disappointing incident from a so called well learnt man who knows to meditate and control apparently and chose not to control.

- had a whole weekend of feeling fatigue and depression. it's like you know you've been eating unhealthy along with bad sleep for a while when you slip into the other side where your body feels sad. It makes me want to complain and use words to find how to get out of the pit.I'm also aware it's hard for someone else to live with me when I'm sad. I need a way out and don't yet know what that is going to be.

- It's good to be aware of where I am and speak accordingly. Perception is reality. Sometimes you do wish you don't have to think about how people perceive you, but sometimes even if not for perception, for boundaries sake, it's great to be at a place where I can wait to be asked before I talk.

- I could put thought on stakeholder alignment.

- People that like to stay inside their boxes with their mental prisons - unwilling to embrace change - heck unwilling to even consider change.

- People with choiceless words. People who like to project power , because they feel threatened inside.

- Character means taking your decisions for the reasons that matter to you and not wavering from it because of peer pressure. This is easy to follow sometimes, like when you decide you are not going to be a superstar home maker because it takes away time from being a wholesome Ananya who needs time for other things that make her feel good.

Sometimes it's hard to follow - like when all someone has to bring you down is their words and you still have to try hard to not let it bother you. 

Goals

Health

Swim / ymca - 3 times a week exercise. 

LA fitness trial

plants

get physicals scheduled for Rat and me

better sleep - timings, eating time/ warmth, overcoming Z's adjustment period

finding a way to balance house chores , Z , going to gym and gym in the evening

        - do it at 4.30 before Z is back from daycare

        - book child activity for Z ahead

S walks

Home Partner / Practice

drive in the weekend to ymca/ la fitness - Costco or Indian store , drive to day care when AJ goes to office

cook nutritiously and joyfully / pack nightly

keep home clean 

love

Z video for her 1.5 years

nature

redtape

get control of Indian account - pay airtel bills by yourself

Rat passport

buy a mattress

backup care

return library books / get new lib card

get over the rafl dreams

work

understand signals better

UA/ presentation

AWS pig kickoff / GCP?

keyword

reading / learning

understand MEP

undertstand rollover roth 

bright horizon backup care

advanced sql for data scientists webinar

read the hbr book on mentoring

level up - think about your personal brand, your stakeholders, OKRs, feedback from manager

https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/events/virtual-classrooms?ccsource=VA - take at least 2 courses.

chatgpt Nachi

housing

Mining / NLP book