July 2023

mid July update:

It's July 17th, mid july. it was busy but not purposeful, but some good movements happened that will give me a chance to reimagine the future. 1 week of exercise followed by 1 week of period. cooking was okay. work could have been better. for the next half of July, I want to continue exercise, put some thought into reimagined life and set some direction for myself. 

I did put thought into direction, did exercise but do want to focus better at work and spend way less time on sm.

July is almost here and what do I want:

1. Exercise : Swim in the evenings + gym = 3, free yoga at farmers /

https://www.laparks.org/aquatic/summer/stoner-park-pool

Adult Lap Swim Pass (30 entries): $88

2. Work : optimal focus + AWS + business + team

2.2 : one big learning project

3. Learning : ask about certification from D. data science.

        https://www.cloudskillsboost.google/paths/118 , looker

4. Money : get more clarity , get notes done, make actionable steps. simulator. coursera.

5. Cook and clean

6. Keep SM to just Friday. 

7. take the masterclass on investing. the money with katie show. youtube.

8. Of course, outdoor fun.

9. Hobby photography

10. This desire to organize thoughts and share.

11. Z - clean, eat, read, library audio books / activities.

12. check roth effects.

13. Drive

Events:

July 4 long weekend - meh jurassic museum

July 12 member's breakfast

July 19 - topgolf

28 - school tour

July 29 - 626eatstreet

aug 1 - Dentist appointment for Z and me.

aug 2 - training

Aug 5 - Gardening propagation

Aug 9 - Arv

Aug 10 - Scooter's dentist appt.

Sep 3 - zoo

Sep 17 - tar pits

Weekday:

M  -  gym / office                            AND read

T   -  (WFH OR big and tiny)         AND possibly swim / dishes / Z bath

W  -  gym / office                            AND cook 

Th -  (WFH OR big and tiny)         AND possibly swim / Z bath

F   -  gym / office                            AND possibly swim / dishes

Sa -  AJ class +laundry / grocery   AND possibly cook / Z bath

/ read                                                                

Su -  read / money habits                AND Batter / cook if not done on Saturday else Outdoor / chill

Thoughts for July:

- drive Z to day care M & F.

- AJ - passport update for CA app

- Ar - visa / tickets 

- CA next step

- Austin ticket / Bay area ticket / Vancouver ticket

- Stay

- India tickets / Scooter's brighthorizon credits

- Rat and I - savings transfers

- Researching and Saving money for Shopping 

        - decisions on housing / car / rotimatic and nymble / composter

        - Z swim clothes / insulated bag / cup

- understand subscriptions : netflix / masterclass subscriptions / barnes and nobles / f1 / prime / ymca

- Z schooling research / year 3

- 529

- money habits

- understand economy and job

- profile to maintain: visualization / AWS data engineer / data analyst / manager  / ad fraud space

- profile to build: search / data science techniques / graph

- tax deficit commuter card

- Z brush / bath / diaper / book / oil

- use YMCA membership - find swim slots, find AJ classes, onepass possibility : saturday class / online fitness gold gym/cycle 

- gym routine - figuring out

- masterclass expires on September 23

- dentist appointment for Scooter and Z

- workaround for big and tiny on site requirement

- SM accounts - the why and the how ; flowers / nymble

- understand LA commute

- LA museum pass / zoo pass from library / Newspapers / consumer reports

- konmari - photos

- what about service / volunteering? thoughts on immigration

Days

1. Oil bath for whole family, lazying, random useless museum, talking about economics when i should have been sleeping.

2. Waking up feeling shitty. Feeling restless. A creative pursuit. Masterclass on investment.

3. some work, lunch @ Westfield mall / shooter alert. 

4. clothes, cleaning, reading news, z bath, katie show, other room clean up

5. Scooter walk, lazy work, lot of investing related reading and podcast.

6. Walk, library card exploration, some financial spreadsheet, cooking

7. Random browsing. Swim. 

8. Z bath, face painting, cook, park.

9. Yoga. Farmers market. Cooking. checking for dental/ eye / Scooter's med appointments.

10. Period day. Ice cream date, paneer, reading and music with Z.

11 - 

12 - immigration volunteering, cook

13 - some work, immigration volunteering, saturated investment gyan

14 - health checkup, brunch date. some tickets

15 - some happy red tape,

16 - Venice canals, cook, ticket booking, little ai

17 - swim, 

18. fidelity

19. gym, tickets, golf

20. dishes, laundry, cook, some ua , some fedex research, austin tickets.

21. fedex, looker

22. Mop, counters, restroom, z, mats - all clean between Rat and me. Met Tim and Linda for lunch.

23. rest. much more social media than is healthy.

24. fedex. work. cook

25. bond. office. immigration. ticket. partner

26. gym. office. tickets

27. work / presentation

28. School tour, work, ip vendor, cook Briyani, swim

29. Kaara kuzhambu, food market. 

30. Yoga. Grocery shopping. Booked India ticket. Setup travel card tracking spreadsheet. 

31. Slept terribly. Gave some gyan that I think is useful. dishes, cleaning, looking for wallet, ML plans. tickets.

Happiness

Fatty breakfasts.

Reading the same book to Z feeling annoyed and helpful at the same time.

ordered a book bundle for Zaya from the STEAM theme from the library.

got access to wall street journal using the lib card and a bunch of audio books, have too many books than I can read. 

booked a bunch of tickets to zoos and museums for free using the library card.

room b has been opened to life, and verandah is almost set up. fingers crossed.

assessing things to learn in H2.

learning about investment.

Z can understand most everything we say. She knows when I ask her to get something from the room. She knows when I ask her to put something back where she took it from. She knows that trash goes into the dustbin. I'm so impressed how much she learns.

Z when she takes milk gently strokes me with her little hands and it's the most warm touch I ever know.

An amazing sunday lunch with such a simple but flavorful jeera rice, dhal and chicken thokku. Just can't beat the combo. And ice cream

the most flavorful tacos - homemade with chicken, chimmichrri, ranch, yogurt n some veggie. dash of lemon.

Ali Sethi. 

The romantic girl is long gone. Except once in a while you are watching an Instagram reel of some recipe and you are not actually watching it. You are just listening to someone's vocal cover of a very moving song and you are reminded of that person you were in the past that knew how to think of love. Two such covers - meenamma and  the female version of 'managalin niram paartha kaadhal mugangalin niram paarkumo'

Cali Tandoor biryani. And a Briyani when you are not expecting one tastes so much better than a Briyani you ordered. 

Venice canals was amazing. I love the houses there - they have a lot of character.

a day out with Tim and Linda at the nursery. some new plants are home.

https://12ft.io/ - a way to pass paywalls 

Z's calls with her grandma.

I ask Z for kisses. Sometimes she gives me kisses especially if she leaving for day care, but most times she says No. I feel sad for a second and then happy that she knows to confidently practice saying no. I'm also happy for the few times recently where I never asked her for a kiss and she would just decide to give me a few. Success. 

Food

AJ - Z's lunch packing everyday. bread sandwiches, guac , butter cookies, chicken, golden beets. rotis and dosas. mushroom, chicken. homemade tacos. amazing chapathis.

Annie - spinach dhal, gochujang tofu scramble, kathrika thokku. Batter. Chicken. Jeera rice, dhal, spaghetti squash poriyal. paneer. spinach sambar, beans poriyal, brussel sprouts. potato masala. keerai poriyal. Chicken Briyani. Kaara kuzhambu.

Outside: Indian sweet and spices subpar food, Eataly cannoli , ravioli and carbonara, and amazing gelato, colony kitchen bowls, annapurna bisibelebath , pongal and rasa vada. wanderlust creamery * 2. white truffle potato chips from trader joes, bunch of readymade italian food from trader joes. chimmichurri. briyani from cali tandoor. Shef meatballs and cauli rice and  tangy fish sauce. Seoul Tofu. Mr.sate. 

Learning

about investment:

travel cards - shopping for points

little book John Bogle - why index is better than mutual. p/e ratios not helpful

chatgpt - portfolios from the Tony robbins books

asking about roth withdrawals and rollover / tax - need to combine with tax loss harvesting

capital gains in roth

moving average

Looker:

- modelled queries : aggregate tables / quick start - copying from explore to model 

- stacked charts

- optimizing queries

        - appending results instead of rerunning

        - persistent derived tables, aggregate awareness, and performantly joining views.

        - derived table / new view for incremental PDT with trigger on created_date using a data group in the model

        - aggregate tables must be persisted for aggregate awareness - it uses the smallest possible table for a view

        - aggregate tables are a typre of PDT made available to the user as a refinement

        - primary_key: yes

- minimal joins - you can have a regular join with 4 tables and a minimal join for just a subset of 2 tables.

- monitoring PDT in dev and prod under admin

Thoughts

Overwhelming organization of thoughts for someone else's need. It's better to accumulate your own thoughts, summarize, follow and only give away tiny bits here and there. Don't give gyan that someone is not asking you for - it's not the best use of your energy. 

Several inspirations arise on top of regular responsibilities.

Responsibilities : rest/health. Z cleanliness , nutrition and engagement. Rat health. Work. Rat money partnership / education.

Inspirations : Investment knowledge from podcasts and coursera. AI. AWS. Fraud groups

Volunteering: Immigration

It would be great if I get to the office as it does help me focus on only the things I can do from there:

work, study, gym.

When meeting people the default plan is usually food and it involves spending without control. I think there's scope to rethink meeting people in a more healthy way - like a park or zoo. and also the introvert in me is super social suddenly and after folks leave, my head's almost ringing with an energy I can't calm down. Got to find a way to manage energy while engaging with people.

As much as I tend to focus on the positives, Z is not like an angel all the time and neither am I the best mom that can be. She scrams and throws food down sometimes. If I'm in a bad loop it can become a vicious circle. Some days, I stuff food so she can get a taste before she rejects. I have to hold her down like a escaping convict to brush her teeth, bathe her etc. I'm sure it will get better, but patience needs to be learnt again and again. 

investment clarity:

put savings stuff in CDs. liquid.

put stocks stuff in indexes and bonds. not liquid.

leave some for experimentation.

understand expense ratio. understand what happens within an index fund. understand international index.

commodities.

June

mid june update: cleaning, plants, some papers. eating junk food, bad sleep, not enough focus @ work, exercise was meh. EQ problems. more emotional human interaction than is usual for an introvert. money book. anxiety about future / money / redtape and other things.

end june update: picked up at work, started going to the office, improved posture, exercised.

May was decent at work - there's so much to know and learn, there was book reading and some action on that, some swimming, AJ going for stretching, plants and walks. Cooking. Lots of home projects focused on beauty , functionality, ease of finding things and keeping Z and S from making a mess. A bunch of eating out. Reading with Z. 

What was bad was fatigue issues , some days crippling. Some EQ issues. Some EQ issues purely stemming from fatigue. Some that needs mental thought. 

For June,

Want to feel

- less burned out and better energy

- have consistent sleep timings and consistently good sleep quality

- improve cardio strength & swimming skills / posture training

- work ergonomics.

- self yoga practice

- have nutrition for good energy and strength, hydration

- relieve neck pain and back pain

Finish book on Money, summarize, start book on data science

- probabilistic and deterministic

Tickets, AWS, user agent, side projects - keyword categorization

money habits, accounting

cook, clean, read, walk, plant

day care check on curriculum and english component

potty training, diaper, nutrition, sleep, weaning.

India flight ticket

community service

fashion

drive Z to day care M & F.

dosa corner

start photo konmari

5 big things:

drive. swim/posture. data science/graph. accounts/ budget. sleep. 

wrap up home projects. 

What did I practice?

1- sleeping early, waking up in time, listening @ meeting, Scooter, plants, dishes, installed the trellis. 

Bad stuff : wasted time, read about some money post and was frustrated , general irritability. 

2 - woke early, 1 ticket, 1 phone call with Godwin, 1 nap, did waste some time. Dishes 1. 

3 - dishes 2, swim, z bath, some reading, walks, posture corrector.

4 - z hair trimming, managing tantrums & hunger, brooming, walk. Mopping room and restrooms. Cooked. Ironed some clothes. trash. Of course I only list what I do and Rat does a whole of other chores - he cooked too today, got groceries, mopped the hall.

5 - some Monday blue, one ticket, 1 walk, little cleaning, dishes, cooking

6- ticket, proactive signal, assembled a shelf and sorted AJ's closet, made thogayal

7 - work, a paper

8 - work

9 - somewhat did some work.

10 - accounts, Biswarup

11 - accounts, spoke about how we will be tight on expenses - stocks will go towards Ar. 1 saved for future but if layoff have to dig into it. .5 left which is emergency, ar, extra costs

12 - one follow up, helping colleague, managing some early warning n just the foresight needed for change in the future.  watched a video from Maya's amma on sibling psychology. slept late wasting time on insta

13 - woke up late, started day late, spoke to Padma, read about crime/Epstein. ate a bunch of sugar and junk recently. feeling a little yuck. 2 days of bad food and not-so-productive thoughts is enough, time to move on to something that feels right / good. worked on 1 ticket partial, tried to understand CND (graph), dishes, read to z.

14. Information overload. Confused about direction. Bad diet. Good dinner. Caffeine, sugar and jitteriness. Converting anxiety to a plan. super late sleep time

15. rotimatic and tap card stuff. open house stuff. 

16. woke up late, Z health checkup, breakfast date with Rat, tickets, a long walk with Scooter, rat made dosa and sandwich. 

17. Z fed through the night. Bathed z. Swam. Cooked. Slept. Ate out n shopped asian mart. Chilling. 

18. Z care, tried to nap, slept in time. 

19. Z care

20. Intended to work and did not intend to cook. Did the opposite, willingly. Needed rest. Needed to cook.

21. office. AWS. 

22. office. gym. AWS. walk. figuring out the bus. google intro to generative AI course.

23. One report using 3rd party data. One case study for stock market shorting analysis. 

24. Swam. Relaxed. Cooked.

25. Beach

26. Gym, 2 analysis. 1 query. Amazon and Instagram browsing. 

27. S walk. one ticket started. one open research started. some cook prep. a lot of time wasted on shopping site just looking at rotimatic and nymble. July planning and thinking about what to think. some Z reading. money check of how much there is - ~5. some instagram account management, Z bath, cooking

28. Gym. Work. Z read. Some investment masterclass.

29. z bath, work, ai intro, scooter walk, investigation, trying coupon abuse on a product I might not even buy, library visit, investment masterclass

30. bad sleep quality and posture, tidying up, quick online shopping, long scooter walk. elaborate cooking, dishes, 

Happiness

When my lap becomes prime real estate that is rented by two cute inhabitants - Z and S, and only one of them wants to control the space at a given time!

Waking up at 6 for offsite meetings especially when I'm suffering from borderline insomnia and burn out was hard, but it's a good way to align with what I want eventually. Waking up early

We're pretty much on our way to tick off every restaurant in Sawtelle. Today it was a tart shop - we got Hong Kong, Portuguese, dates, sesame, radish mushroom and coconut. I preferred the Portuguese to the Hong Kong, z devoured the coconut that tasted like coconut barfi, sesame had a strong taste similar to the black sesame mittai from Indian street. Everything was very mild - no sugar so the sweetness came from the ingredients itself. The savory one was interesting. Anyway, after mom and especially in college I never quite spent enough time on Chennai streets knowing what's good where and so doing it here in Los Angeles kind of makes up for it. Isn't it funny most of our life is about what we wanted to do as a kid and could not. 

I won a $75 coupon to the yahoo swag store for writing a story about my networking experience.  The experience itself was valuable so this is icing on the cake. I got a track pant, a bottle and an insulated coffee mug with a filter in. 

did I tell you? I joined shef for user testing and gave them some direct inputs which I believe will be helpful for the product team. It was also insightful for me to see how these sessions happen. I get a coupon for doing that. I also followed up with them twice so they send the bag recycling team to LA, got a coupon for that too. 

Cleaning when it's deep is painful. It sucks time and energy to the point of me wondering why has so much of my life recently been about cleaning where it could have been about travel etc. However there are some rewards - finding something rotten in that corner behind a leg no one would see and getting rid of it, finding all the alphabets to Z's alphabet puzzle, finding the airpods that AJ was looking for, solving the mystery of that pair of spectacles that AJ had not found in a year, finding a whole lot of dust in a seemingly clean apartment, breathing fresh air into every item in the house and reminding me to actually use the things I possess that I don't use much - maybe wear all those fashionable clothes , maybe have a game night and play those board games but the best of all in a faulty inbuilt shelf ina corner between two wedges where things could have forever been forgotten ,we found a gold ring of Z we almost forget we owned. 

Dada mopped the floor in the hall - a long pending item and the feeling of freshly mopped floors is special.

Love the random friendliness of people who walk - one someone noticing we were carrying the same take home box from the tart place and checking how it tasted. Another asking if I had a spare poop bag for his dog.

Today, I took the hashimoto route for scooters walk. It was lovely weather. At the house where they give away orange colored little fruits for free , a new flower was spotted - one I've never seen before. Sawtelle is just full of new flowers. Hashimoto looked extra beautiful. 

reading a paper and making some sense of it is good, but also reminds you of how much you don't know. or should have learnt.

Yesterday I cried. I thought about people who are lonely and people who really want a baby but can't have one and somehow felt their pain. I was on my period so it did add to why I was feeling so sad. It's amazing cuz someone who I was talking about to Rat yesterday just gave the news that they are expecting a baby :)

and the other person that was sick and lonely - I think I gave them some hope and they also met a doc and got the right help. 

Free food Wednesdays.

a great open house. a great vision. 

Rat's tap card with money on it. Rat's chilli oil for the noodles.

breakfast date at Thyme with Rat. food was okay. we did nothing special but something felt good about it - just the fact that we got time with just us - no Z, may have made me feel the difference.

It's summer friday - so half a day - and start of a long weekend, so S got a generously long walk, new plants to smell, lots of sun and we even sat outside at the porch after the walk so we could soak in even more sun. Even Scooter was willing to come back home after his extra long time out. 

someone at work spoke about how teenagers now can't go 12 minutes away from home without having access to a phone because they are not street smart. Inside my head I was like that sounds like me. I've been understanding LA neighborhoods better when we started what was house hunting earlier in the year, but gave up on. And that was a good exercise around school districts. But today I again looked at the train lines to understand better and there are so many gaps to fill, still! And knowing the highways is a whole other exercise to understand. the process makes me happy though I am still on the dumb side.

Z loves dogs and animals in general. She will always stop to say hi to them. She also knows to say 'Mine' when Scooter tries to take a food or toy that she had in her hand. 

So here are the lines: 

blue/ A line all the way down from Long beach to Azusa / Pasadena through union station

red/B line and purple/D line from union station towards the west to hollywood and north hollywood

orange/G line - further northwest from north hollywood towards Simi Valley / Van Nuys / canoga park

yellow/E line - santa monica, west LA(where I am) , culver city all the way to east LA through little Tokyo / union station.

pink/K line - from expo/crenshaw (in between culver and west LA) down towards Baldwin hills / inglewood.

green/ C line - south from redondo beach / hawthorne / torrance all the way to Norwalk in the south east

When we put Z on our shoulder to pat her to sleep, even before we pat her, she pats us - it's so heartwarming. We like to think she approves and appreciates our parents.

Finding a sectional summary of the book you were reading on masterclass = happiness.

capital one extension for finding coupons! 

New books for Z from the library. She always goes 'Boo' or 'boosh' and that means she wants to read a book. Once she is done she will throw the book on the floor, go to the book shelf and get the next one.

Food

Me: idli and kathrika kaara kozhambu, green curry with tofu, paneer masala and jeera rice, peerkanga thogaiyal, spinach , vazhakka. Sambar. Gose. Semia. Noorkol kuzhambu. Poosinika sambar. Carrot poriyal. paneer burji, konda kadala tinda kulambu, creamy spinach noodles, fruit pastry puffs, caramelized brussel sprouts, potato au gratin.

Rat: air fried sweet potato and cauliflower. chilli oil and soba noodles. ir fried sweet potato and cauliflower again. Chicken. Salad. Portobello mushrooms. Chicken stir fry. chilli sauce laksa. dosa, chapathis

Outside : tart place , coco ichibanya - had naan and keema curry and it felt more authentically indian than indian restaurants to me , lol :D big boi - chicken adobo combo meal - was okay but then we went to melo melo for dessert and it was just yumm! :) we got the strawberry one and stravacado pistachio one .. yummm! tsujita vegan ramen. Chicken and egg Briyani from abiruchi. 

Learning

on Instagram there were a few posts about money. One is about the research that happiness plateaus after a certain level of money, but that research is now debunked. The clarified version is that for a person that makes 1 million a 10k increment does not attribute much to happiness but a second million almost certainly does. And it affects baseline happiness.

The other one was about the theory that you have to sacrifice now for later good. While that is true to some extent there is a tipping point after which how much you sacrifice gives you a very smaller slice of later good. So it's often wiser to take the long winding road to happiness than the highway. 

law of diminishing returns

Sleep

Been learning about sleep debt, circadian cycles and dips and peaks in energy through the day. Have to go watch huberman again.

Doctors. 

The number of anesthesiologists that turn into addiction and suicide is a problem that is rarely discussed. The caretakers need care. The underpaid caretakers, even more so - the nurses, teachers, community workers. 

A friend and I were talking about how easy it is to become part of systems that make work the most important part of life. We allow things to happen to us, even when it's tipped way off balance.

Today's a day that I knew would arrive. I assumed it would arrive because it must be hard to live with regrets - it must be hard to live with mistakes. Mistakes one chose to make when one had the choice not to make it in spite of a stance that could have held so much respect. In a way, karma has arrived. I don't know if any realization actually happened. Either way, I'm not feeling happiness or peace. I hope for positive change the way the world knows it - by learning from mistakes and making the best of what is left , holding on to the lessons learnt. I pray for the healing of a family that is stressed. I pray for a way forward for the family. I pray for healing. The eventuality of death is the reminder that we have a short life that can be chosen wise enough to count. 

It is the right thing to report something so it does not repeat, it is the right thing to protect your boundaries, it is the right thing to break the taboo and stop pretending like there was no problem. It is the right thing to reiterate firmly and if necessary loudly what your boundaries are, if people who you previously held at a high stance do not understand the importance of these boundaries. It is also good to hope for a better time forward for all involved , that there is realization, evolution and kindness available for everyone. This last part cannot happen when you will never know if evil still prevails in hiding. And so the next best thing is distance. My hope exists, but there is a wall that keeps my happiness on my side of the wall, and I don't really care what happens on the other side of the wall. 

random books : the siberia job, harilal and sons

We don't give as much as we can. Caring is considered a chore. but we could get better at this.

I'm overwhelmed because I'm thinking of too many things. Here are things on my mind:

Z nutrition

Z transitional kindergarten

Immigration

Plan for eb

Economy / volatility

Future of my job

What to learn now

Current state of my job 

Red Tape : tickets / oci / passport 

Appa

Health

Drive

Time management

Home chores

External validation

Sleep

Money stuff

Contribution 

Car 

Housing

Kitchen appliances

Sustainability / gardening.

I think some things are outside my control and somethings are in my control. And I can only live one day at a time. 

So things not in my control

Immigration / eb - done what I can, got to wait. 

Future of my job - not in my hand, better be prepared or atleast prepare to be prepared.

Appa - for this year, I can only meet him in December. Next year, situation can change. 

Money can be a source of anxiety. Rat has changing expenses. We have a daughter and limited energy, so the luxury of day care is an expense we can't do without. Thinking about the future - saving enough for Z, being comfortable etc is also on our mind. But peace can only be had if we have clarity and communication. For now I don't have great clarity about a path towards my dreams but at least communication about his family's expenses. What that means is I need patience, focus on the things that I can work on and understanding. We also don't know about the economy. So we have to really wait for our dreams and focus on the very little we can save.

Things I can work towards:

Sleep - I can try sleeping by 10 and waking up by 7.

I can exercise atleast twice a week while learning the skill of swimming. I can workout at yahoo.

I can drive to day care , can drive to YMCA - atleast once a week to start with.

I can learn about advertising, search, pattern recognition, data science, fraud, data engineering in the job.

I can avoid sugar and caffeine and have predictable energy patterns. 

I can do kitchen related cleaning and cooking only once in the week and once in the weekend.

Things I get help with 

Z nutrition - Rat takes care of packing her food. If I can get enough sleep I can help him in the morning, else just give him suggestions and trust him. I'm breastfeeding so that's a good thing.

 

One-off things:

Can take a weekend to do oci / tickets. 

Research:  kindergarten, car , housing, economy, gym options/ stoner park. Investing.

What really causes a time crunch is the time I have to share between managing Z's energy, cooking, cleaning, wanting to understand money and work towards it. Wanting to study something like data science. AA

Cleaning, I can't do without - so it will happen. 

Z is not in my control - I have to learn the art of balancing her energy and being able to focus on one of my needs. 

So cooking and the cleaning that comes from cooking - this is really my pain area. I would like to free up this time towards relaxing time in the evening - maybe towards reading. 

Cooking was a conscious decision in December. For health, nutrition, variety, cost savings, and Z's lunchbox etc. I'm proud of myself for trying for so long but I need back some time towards other things. 

I could keep cooking to just 2 days. Once in the weekend and once in the week. And keep the cleaning also around those days. Even in those two times, AJ can do it once and me the other time. 

Breakfast is simple usually - oats / nut bar / egg / milk - so that's fine. 

In the weekend I can make idli batter. That will do for dinner. A simple chutney won't take 5 minutes. 

Chapathi - a rotimatic would be great - we don't have the space to put it but yeah. Hummus would do. Both idli and chapathi can be made with super grains. 

For lunch we could get efficient. Quinoa is quick.

Or pasta. One protein / one legume / one veggie. 

Outside of this, I need to order healthy economic food outside. Decision was under 40 per meal.

If I cook once in a week and once in the weekend, work out once in the week and once in the weekend, during the week I will get 3 evenings free to manage studying, Z and research topics. 

Money needs:

Car - 25k - can use bus and Rat's car to practice. Don't need now.

Rotimatic - 1.5k - can buy but should be okay with it taking up space in the kitchen.

Housing - 80 percent affordability and atleast 30 percent down. - just wait till you are comfortable and it is actually a wise decision.

Arv - Rat plus backup option.

Rat's whatever he can save towards house fund. My monthly contribution towards housing fund. Rat .8 and me maybe 2k. 

Need to understand investing better. 

401k / 529

Gym - options for swim / option for Rat outside of YMCA. 

Sleep, wake, z ready, you ready, s walk, work, stretch, evening

Evening - study/ research/ Zaya. 

M 

T

W - gym, office, cook, dishes

T - swim

F

Laundry, contribution. Zaya/ outdoor/ Research / study

S - swim, Rat class, cook, dishes, 

S - batter.

Long weekend sucked. One cuz Rat was working and did not have long weekend so I was basically at home with Z not having day care. T wanted to meet and I could not get there in time and after putting in effort to get stuff cleaned and ready she said she can't meet cuz she had dinner plans. It sucked and I'm glad I got my sleep. Back problems in the home. Tried a butter cookie recipe and burnt it by letting it sit for just 5 more minutes. Nothing much really happened this long weekend - no time to study or anything. I did enjoy food at Annapurna's and shopping at the Asia market, I enjoyed the sambar I made, a little bit of music maybe but overall there's an annoying cloud over me. A sense of having no direction. I feel like screaming. Z is attached and I don't have a place to escape to for a bit. 

May 2023

 May is almost here:

What I'd like is a continuation of Apr.

- Some action items from the book / finish the book

- Steady progress at work - UA / device atlas / missing imp / AWS / shopping

- Z - bathe, walks, b, food, diapers

- Need a backup solution / other drop off options for day care

- bright horizon backup care

- day care red tape

- immunity supplements

- cook and clean

- find a workout schedule - swim / yoga

- weekend parks / class booking?

- more consistent sleep times

- passport / CA

- mint review / accounts / cutting down on expenses we don't use

- undertstand rollover roth 

- networking

- get physicals scheduled for Rat and me

- S and plants

- mattress

- airtel bill / IOB account

- drive

- events - library / rummage sale / 

- book on housing / little investment book

- 529 plans

- tax loss harvesting

- investment post mortem - fees / returns

- think about mentoring

- Z haircut

- Z photos

- sawtelle flowers

- Z weekend nutrition 

- book swim class

- search trends

- streaming media

- Tanmayi

- mindfulness retreat in June in Santa Cruz

- understand GAAP and RNOT

- Nachi talk

- Legal AI talk

- make a plan for AWS

- MRV fee

- make a plan for AI/ML learning/NLP

- home improvement

What did I practice / push today?

- May 1st to May 3rd : Cooked , pushed little work, Z things, read, sold stocks, rested. 

- 4th - lots of new branches in proj/ meetings. cooked. Z bath, Z reading, feeding.

- 5th - networked and understood about ginsu. worked a bit, laundry, dishes, reading

- 6th - read, beach, checked a daycare, cooked , cleaned a tonne, and exercised a LOT of patience with Z. bathed her. bookshelf chaos.

- 7th - cooked, shopped some home improvement things - storage shelves, pots.

- 8th and 9th - pushed work a little, 1 swim, organized the book shelf 

10th - (period, cake,  TV), some work

11th - (period, briyani), some work, lots of reading

12th - working on java and maven the first time in many many years.

13th and 14th - house organization.

15th - laundry, walk, tickets, little cooking

16th - closing tickets, dishes, shoe shelf, fold clothes, walked and read to Z, read the streaming media magazine.

17th - device atlas. helping teamie, swim, cook.

18 - device atlas. Comedy show, music, walk

19

20 - dishes. 

21 - beach, trail, met tanmayi , went to yellow chilli.

22 - ticket and a LOT of lying around with my thoughts and better sleep

23 - dishes, cooking, meetings

24 - Scooter, sleep, scooter

25 - ticket

26 - grocery, yoga, walk, read, lazy cooking, laundry 1, laundry 2, ate, read a book to Z, swam.

27. Slept unnecessarily late and dealt with tiredness for the most part. Sorted my clothes, sorted Zaya's clothes, sorted documents. 

28. Again, groggy. Sorted medicine shelf, cosmetics, electronics shelf, some of the trinkets stuff and stationery. It feels like an 8 hour job just sorting. Super tired. And it's 1 already. 

29. second iteration organizing stationary shelf, Z's craft stuff, throwing away things, Z bath, me bath, cooked. chilled in the verandah, put a face pack, got AJ to use a foot pack, did Scooter's claims.

30. Insomnia, day care red tape, massage, water, early dinner, shef bag prep, wind down schedule.

31. planned and improved how I sleep, but had to wake up early for an offsite call, feeling so fucking burnt out. cancelled swim in the evening - just gonna focus on rest till I become functional again. There's the stress of pending tickets eek.

Happiness:

I like the pace of life. the balance of things. the boundaries between different aspects of life, and the improving focus within those bounded areas. 

Z runs to me everyday after she comes from day care. Yesterday she rightfully swung herself onto me and fed me the leftover wafer that she was chewing on. Most times you don't need to overthink if you are a mom, a good mom etc. Your child knows and she will tell you in her ways.

Was only able to briefly talk to Lavs, but her gentle suggestions help me try something new here and there, especially with parenting - this time it was about nutrition and food before for sleep.

Bubbles - who knew I'd get so excited to see bubbles at this age. Huge bubbles that fly far and wide have a certain awe to them.

we had to change how the bookshelf was laid because Z's been a monkey and climbing everything she can, touching the shoes, pulling things apart, one Z based anxiety down

the magic of being able to sit in the front seat and put Z in the car seat - someday magically I hope she will also sleep without needing me.

she's been doing cute things as usual - like she can now take things to dada if I ask her to, she wanted to reach something, so she threw books down and got on top of them to get some height.

She is suddenly interested in books and words, with absolutely no pushing from our side. She picks a book, comes to us and asks us to read it for her. It's just awesome to do things for her when she initiates it vs we do it.

At daycare she has two favorites - Iqra's two kids and she learns from them for sure. they like her, she likes them - she learns hugs and words and nice things from them. 

Every time Z finds something new to mess with, we find solutions and it also turns into home improvement ideas. how can we make it work for her and us and make it look welcoming at the same time. started with some nice polka dot storage to close our book shelf so she does not throw them.

cake to forget period pains. a husband that takes the time to get it :)

Arya Dhayal - kabhi kabhi aditi , que sara, kabhira

the happiness of knowing you don't have to be the best as per anyone's definition. you just be the best you can be - and find happiness within it.

Chocolate croissant from the farmers market

Chinchikurin okonomiyaki... Was tasty and looked amazing.

Bougainvillea and fake grass for the verandah.

couldn't cook much last week cuz periods/ mood/ cleaning etc so we ate out and also AJ managed the kitchen.

Had a wonderful lunch with chicken AJ made and the portobello mushrooms side that he made too.

spinach croissant

closing tickets

I read Z's story books with more intent than she does. So I can't close the book without finishing it. She's got one book about trucks and it's quite interesting how many different kinds of trucks there are. Yesterday I played a video reading of a book called 'Mike Gulligan and his steam shovel' . I loved it. It's about the steam shovel that gets out marketed by new innovations and how much she can do. The steam shovel even has a name - Mary Anne. Today when I took Scooter walking I paused and watched a truck lift an entire storage container using a machine and pulley system. It's amazing how so much weight was lifted by just chains. 

Z's learnt to rawwwwr. Her mouth goes oval and nostrils flare up as she goes rawwwwr!!

T's house in Corona was nice as a community, had a beautiful swimming pool with an amazing view. A great trail, dog park. It was a nice day had. We went to Yellow Chilli, it was americanized Indian food - it was too rich for my taste and less spicier for Indian food.

Rat's been to YMCA 2 weeks in a row.

Arj got a job - it's not the easiest one - not the most well-suited one either., But it's a start, something to use and develop a work ethic off. a stepping stone.

Thankful that Rat was available to take care of Scooter with his worsening health. Thankful that doctors exist. it's costly - these things - and I hope Scooter recovers from all of this and has a smooth life.

gotta admit. Shruthika's videos are funny

Happy about removing some costs off Scooter by during some critical thinking and comparison with his vet's costs. It's still an unfair system but saved $400 and delayed another $400 to see if necessary. 

Good news he is much better than we initially assumed.

Rat made chapatis for dinner the last two days. This morning after trying for a few days we finally got to have breakfast. Again, Rat made it. I've been having blood sugar and fatigue issues and I decided I can't afford to skip breakfast anymore. And he also offered to take Scooter to his office so I can use my day off today outside the apartment if need be. If course he packed Z's food too. He has been super helpful at the cost of going late to work. I can't get his help this way. We have to try and wake up earlier and be respectful of each others time. Anyway I'm super thankful he did all this and dropped me at the gym too. I'm going to use this privilege well. 

If u had a definition of angel, it would be Z waking up in the morning and giving me one of her precious smiles.

Had soon tofu at Seoul tofu. Was an amazing experience. You get an amazing tofu soup with half cooked egg. I chose the veggie soup with veggie broth. And you get an amazing set of 6 sides. Kimchi. Mashed potato. Vinegar sweet radish. Fish cake. Bean sprouts. Broccoli. Then, rice. And then if you get it as a combo you get a huge dish. I got spicy barbeque chicken - it was the best fried chicken I've had in a long time. Rat got the bimimbap combo. The tofu soup is like mapo tofu, very flavorful with mushrooms, squash.  All the flavors together were great. Loved the simple kick from the kimchi , radish and even bean sprouts  Oh and then we went to bsweet and had a fudgiest brownie - I loved it.

Z and S fighting and pushing each other way to get prime real estate space on my lap. It's super cute. But it gets annoying very soon when you are sleepless cranky. 

Dosa and chutney

thankful for the ulundhu ladoos Tanmayi gave me.

Food:

palak paneer, poori potato, rajma masala, salad, dhal and vazhakka, beetroot curry, fired rice, idlys and chutneys. briyani. beans poriyal, keerai poriyal, sweet potato masala. Puffs with leftovers. 

chicken curry, brussel sprouts, sambar, paneer poriyal, green curry with meal maker, paneer, broccoli and sweet potato. Spinach dhal. Raita, veg Briyani, paneer. black eyed peas, beans poriyal.

Rat : pepper chicken, shredded chicken, mushroom, aspargus, mushroom. the tomato hummus in sandwiches. chapathis. Broccoli, sweet potato. 

Outside : mayura, ny gyro, colony hawaiian chicken - none were great, blueys chicken sandwich, chocolate croissant, spinach croissant. Okinomiyaki,

Abiruchi - shrimp, Briyani, paneer Tikka.

Yellow chilli - costly, food tasted too rich for my taste.

Soon tofu at Seoul tofu.

Learning

How a book is written:

A compelling format is causing fear and creating anticipation for a solution against the fear and then addressing it towards the end.

lots of examples of what can go wrong.

listened to a podcast on how apollo thinks about yahoo and about the magic of finding good deals and making good deals - how by making the right strategic sales, they almost bought yahoo for free and how things look like at that level - a lot of the workforce think about about what products do, they start with what products make and then come to what products do. It was quite interesting how mergers and acquisitions and finance work. it was interesting to see how each of yahoo's product is a separate entity and how they see most of us - as people and culture from a company that failed. how management was replaced at upper levels. you understand how insignificant you are. but of course, you are always insignificant if you want to really think about it that way. 

also how what one considers a dying business just because they come from the perspective of we are not the leaders, but when you flip the story to say, that even a 1% market share is 1B, now the focus changes.

work and presenting. I think presenting is definitely something that makes me grow. 

Nachi's thoughts on AI/ ML/ NLP

- Deeplearning is a subset of ML is a subset of AI.

- supervised - classification, regression

- unsupervised - clustering, association, dimensionality reduction

- NLP - understanding / generation. statistical NLP - part of speech - neural NLP - word embeddings.

- loss function - difference between actual result and ML result and back propagation(calculus) to bridge the gap.

- Feature engineering - small number of features better for model but can land in local optima instead of global optima. 

Watched this amazing interview of sakthishree on ss music. The anchor did a phenomenal job and there were two people speaking out their hearts and shakthishree showing how much love goes into her music for her to experience and share it to us. 

Thoughts:

online shopping takes time. sucks time. 

Watched a man called Otto. A movie that makes me sad, a little like Tuesdays with Morrie. 

boring and stable is usually better than cool and unstable.

some anxiety - half stemming from money related issues , half from a bunch of tasks that are all progressing but have not been completed. the tasks - I have to keep working on them and they usually get better. The money issue is actually a people-issue - a partnership that feels unfair, taken-for-granted. I don't like someone else's mistakes impacting my life that I consciously craft and work hard towards. I feel anger at the carelessness and the insincerity. I have to be patient and I feel like I have been for a long time. A partnership is about two people working equally and being equally sincere and cautious about the choices in their lives. A partnership is not one where one allows drags on one's life because of impulsive decisions without enough thought put into it. 

Dust needs to settle..

it's so hard for me to say 'I' .. I always resort to 'We' when actually I did most of the work. I also feel I should be the face of my work and in quite a few instances have been feeling it's not the case. Well something to learn and fill.

a pair of sandals, some memories about the wedding, some regretful feelings, another day of managing emotions by distracting myself with work.

they say your identity should not come from something that can easily upset you - that you don't have control over. Career makes life interesting for me. Perhaps the thing to identify with in the career should be the personal things like - the pursuit of knowledge, taking opportunities, finding growth. 

There are several ways I can learn from my career: data engineering, advertising, fraud, advocating for oneself. 

Bad mood and fatigue.

Scooter's heart condition is getting worse.

We took him to emergency today and in addition to the 500 we spent for a regular consultation, they slapped another 2500 on me today. Removed the blood pressure check for 170, removed the X ray for ~800 bucks and the x ray related sedation 90. The xray was available at his vet for half the price at $400 if necessary. the sedation for echocardiogram was 290 and the same sedation for xray was 90 just because of the procedure the sedation is associated with - which is just pure theft. the echocardiogram itself was 825 (850 at his vet). the emergency exam was 250 and the cardio consultation was 140 (which is 70 at his vet). Because we were not sure of the emergency, I did some cost analysis and got our bill to 1200. The xray is not necessary unless he has a breathing problem but he does not have one now. He also had better BP now. So it's just some regular meds and some anti-anxiety to get him to cooperate for the echocardiogram. I'm a little happy for making the cost analysis but it took quite some time to get the comparison from his regular vet to save us a possible 400 if not the whole 800 on the xray. there's also a radiology interpreter cost of $200. The medicines are available - 30 tablets in the market for the same price he gets 2 here- it's a mere $6 for me but the profit margin for the hospital on every box of medicine is 1:15. So yea the industry, the doctor education and the patient costs are all designed to screw us all. of course they add in real estate, reception, logistics and service cost itself.

The brain - it has it's strange thoughts. It can cook up things - on a normal day when everything is going fine, it can cook up an earthquake, an attack, a theft and problem-solve in your head. With some awareness we get to disregard the nature of the brain and focus on reality. Sometimes , if we add a pinch of emotion , memory, the feeling of lack to the mixture - it can get a little more sticky making up stories that aren't peaceful but you indulge in a bit. It's not fair to reality - you are taking your focus off today to indulge in these thoughts. The actual problem to solve is the feeling of lacking. The feeling of lack is informed to a certain extent by your imagination - and you can imagine just how much ever you want about what you can expect and the more you can imagine the more you can lack. Lack also comes from conditioning. That there are some social structures that you want. One thing is missing that the heart wants - and behind that one thing, a complex mindset. 

want breakfast

Long weekend burning out: 

It's a 4 day weekend and I can't believe I've spent three of those days tirelessly setting every nook and corner of the apartment. It's bordering an obsessive level. And with not enough sleep. The problem is that after all this, I actually have uncovered more things to do. I feel if I have a house, it will be way more complicated than an apartment. 

Anyway what I have to do that is left is :

- Mop house, clean bathrooms, clean fridge side door. Clean the humidifiers and put them away.

- format electronics and do away with stuff.

- organize and arrange Rat's closet. 

- make the guest room shelf more space and buy a mattress for the room. 

- organize stationary and games a little better. 

- clear up my table

- get small trellis and put plants on dresser. Get some more seeds. 

Fix the peacock ceramic stuff. 

- put the cycle, transformer, some jewel stuff for sale. 

- what the process inspired me to do is probably use more of my make up and clothes. 

Have to cook for the week, dishes, finish the book, give z a bath, do Scooter's claims, z day care docs. 

Want to do accounting, z videos, photo organization. Book India tickets, get passport stuff completed. 

For second half of year, want to drive, want to potty train Z, want to sleep better, maybe meditate. Want to read more on ML and AI. 

For a house , a garden will be a big commitment, z will need a room for her and a guest / storage room would be great. I want spaciousness but don't want the complexity of managing too many things. 

I want to sing with appa. 

Anyway with so many things on my mind, I have to prioritize giving myself a break tomorrow. And that means waking up late, just put away the basic things  - giving z a bath, cooking and eating well, going to a park and chilling / reading, finish z paperwork , scooter paperwork and focusing on sleeping in time. 

For the short week I should focus on sleep, waking up, learning, ticket and presentation. I have a cardio, a swim, maybe one cooking and regular day to day stuff. Home organization stuff - as and when I have time. 

Next weekend I have one more swim, after which I want to do self care - massage , color etc. I could summarize the book and spend 1 hour on accounting each day. I could also spend one hour each day on z videos. 

The week after that - want to get started on projects, but also start ML understanding. 

Eventually I want day to be like

Wake early, z help, breakfast, exercise, scooter.

Work / learning 

Scooter, z , cooking , workout 

Weekend 

Cooking, project, learning, workout , one outing. 

Experiment with clothes.volunteer. 

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