The New Me on Good Old Blogosphere

2 Years!! More than 2 years it has been since I wrote a post on this blog and now that I have decided to take it up again, I don't feel like the same person anymore. It seems that I am writing on someone else's blog! I changed the blog template before starting to write a new post to give it a new feel, to give it a 'me' feel and yet who am I trying to fool? I have changed dramatically in these 2 years and it is difficult to maintain any continuity on this blog now.

I am married, I am a housewife and I am pregnant!!! Phew.... better to have it out in the beginning than to create a build up. Yet few things in my life have stayed the same. I am still the happy, careless, confused and loving person that I always was and that I always (hopefully) will be.

(I have sweet-talked the hubby into taking me out for dinner tonight and hence I have time to write my come-back post and read up on what my long-lost blogger friends have been up to. Else I would have been cooking dinner at this time of the day :))

I intend to blog often now and write about how my life changed in the past 2 years, about all the nervousness and anticipation associated with being pregnant, about my exciting new life as a housewife (ha!), and my dreams and plans for the future. I guess I would blog about many other things too that I can't think of at the moment, but I hope you get the drift. I am gonna blog about my life like I used to, except that this time it is going to be about far more important and serious stuff like lunch-box recipes for the hubby...... nyah.... I am kidding!!

See you soon with a longer post. It feels good to be back.... :)

Endless Longings

Whenever I have enough time to sit back on my chair and think, I yearn for our China Study Trip and the time when Sid and I would finally live together. I want time to zoom past until the study trip, and then slow down for those exciting (I hope) days in China, then conveniently zoom past again until the time I am with Sid and then perhaps slow down as per my wishes.

This makes me realise that my life is more like a series of longings for something or the other. Last year at the end of February I was longing for coming to Belgium. When I was finally here, I longed for our Christmas break to go back to India. After the Christmas break here I am, yearning for the China Trip and going back to India for being together with Sid. I am sure the craving would be for something else after I have lived these two experiences. Do we ever get satisfied and live completely, uncomplainingly in the moment? Or is it just me? I like to imagine that when I will live with Sid and we would have the careers of our choice and live in the country of our dreams, I will long no more and be unquestioningly satisfied and sickeningly happy. But is that true? Would there be something else to crave for then? Babies, perhaps? I don't know, I am just guessing!

The thing is that why can't I just be happy in the moment. Not that I am not happy, but there is just this endless longing and waiting. After all I am now living the life for which I was counting days a year back. Why then, am I waiting for this time to just fly by? Perhaps because I believe that I have more exciting things to look forward to. I am thankful that I have such a life at the moment, that every time I have newer and better things to look forward to, but I should also be able to completely live the experience that I wished for in a not so distant past. Isn't this insulting to that 'someone' up there who grants our wishes if we just keep desiring for more and better?

Is it just normal human nature or is it the paranoia of someone who can never be satisfied? Am I just human or am I insane? Or am I being insane right now by blogging my useless (?) reflections when I have to study for the frightening Corporate Finance exam?

Life Is Throwing Lovely Gifts At Me!

Welcome 2010!! I hope you will be as exciting as 2009 was.

I loved 2009! It was the most favourite year of my life so far; the year when I made it to one of my dream B-Schools; the year when I started a very exciting journey of Business education. The year when I met (again) the person with whom I am destined to spend the rest of my life. Yes, I am officially engaged to Sid now. You can congratulate us! :D

My vacations in India were too beautiful but too short. Going back home for 12 days after 5 months in this cold and different country was like months of spiritual and emotional healing. I hogged on food, I shopped when I had time, I met Sid's parents and he met mine. It cudn't have been better but too soon it was time to leave.

I was scared before meeting his family for the first time. How would it go? Would they like me? Would they like my family? Would my family like them and Sid? Would we have anything in common with them? But as it turned out, all my fears were just stupid. It went fabulously well, I couldn't have asked for anything better. They loved me, and my family loved Sid! I am in love with Sid's beautiful home and his adorable family. The next day when they came to my home, our families quietly suggested to us to make it official. So, there was a little exchange of gifts and voila, we were engaged! It was a beautiful evening and I keep reliving it through pictures that were clicked.

We both are on top of the world and have many dreams, hopes and plans. There are many decisions to be made. Whether I will move to Bangalore or he will move to Belgium? Whether we should immediately start working on our business plans or just continue with boring work lives for a while? Whether I should target consulting companies or investment banks? Whether we should get married in November or February of next year? Phew!

However, all said and done, we are both looking forward to it, and just can't wait to be with each other. It was difficult to say goodbye at the airport this time. At that moment, I felt that I don't want to leave, at least not so soon. I am glad that my family organized it in such a way that Sid could come with us to the airport when I was leaving. I hugged Mom and Dad and shook hands with Sid. I almost had tears in my eyes when he clasped my hand with both of his and looked into my eyes and simply said, "Take Care". I kept looking back at him until the last moment and he always smiled back. No, I did not cry before him but I did cry during the flight. I am this emotional fool at times, who can sob away while staring out of the window into nothingness as a plane flies 10,000 feet above ground. Sigh....., love can make you silly ;)

As an extra beautiful surprise in life, I received a 'Stylish Blogger Award' from Small Town Girl. Thanks sweetheart, you are one of my favourite bloggers and receiving an award from you feels great! This award is doubly special as it is my first and will always be cherished.

Counting Days

No matter where you are in the world, there's one feeling that stays the same across cultures and countries. The feeling that you get when exams are over!!

I used to feel the same way in High School, in Engineering, and now even in MBA. All my classmates here feel the same way. That feeling of relief, and of having all the time in the world to do whatever you please. Right after the last exam, a Chilean classmate mentioned to me, "Now I have an appointment with my pillow!" And I smiled.

So, the first part of our MBA is done, that constitues one-third of the program. I don't want to comment on how I did in the exams, they are over, and that's a relief. We have a 4 day residential seminar starting from 15th December and then holidays!! Wooohoooo!!!

I shopped last evening and realised how beautiful the streets looked because of all the decorations for Christmas. I hadn't been out of my studio and school since last some days, and hadn't realised that the Christmas season is already upon us.

I am counting days for going back to India. While eating pizza last night for dinner, I almost cried thinking of Mom's cooking and all the food that I will eat when I reach home. I am tired of the Belgian, Thai and Turkish food here and even of my own cooking. I know that I will hog and gain weight at home, but who cares!

Siddharth has booked his tickets for Delhi and I can't wait to see him again. This will only be the second time since we have grown up that I will meet him! Sounds unbelievable even to myself, but it's true. Surprisingly, I never feel that I have met him just once. Perhaps because I know him since I was a 6 year old and because I see him on Skype everyday. When I tell our little story to my women friends here, they get the shock of their lives. "You have met him just once since you grew up! And you really started talking to each other only six months back, out of which you have been in Belgium for four months! Are you sure you want to marry him???" If I use all that logic, I know I would never suggest someone else to do what I am doing. But truly, I have never been so sure of anything in my life. Yes, I do want to marry him :)

Ah! It's time to get ready and head to the shopping streets! It's Christmas season and I wanna shop!!

One Of My Favorite Profs!

He has made Financial Accounting interesting for us! That in itself is an achievement!

Check out the video on the right.

Getting Graded

We have been graded for 2 subjects so far and thankfully I have scored above the class average for both Financial Accounting and Managing Across Cultures. I don't know how long would I be able to maintain that but for now, I am satisfied. I never aimed to be the topper here and I live a relaxed life, talk for hours with my boyfriend and have healthier sleeping hours compared to most of my classmates, so I feel I am good with the grades :)

I used to have this feeling a couple of months back that Siddharth and I would just spoil each other's professional lives because we spend so much time on Skype and phone. However, I am happy that we are both managing quite well. My entire class knows that I talk to my boyfriend for hours at a stretch on Skype, and they get quite shocked about the fact that I manage to find so much time for him. Sid is doing great in juggling his job and Phd. preparation and IELTS preparation and French classes and gym etc. Trust me, his job is not easy. Poor guy is living the dreaded post MBA work life, in which one works like an ass ;) But I never feel starved of attention from him, it is just perfect. Touchwood! :)

At Vlerick, we work in many teams for various group projects and reports in different subjects. Some groups are great and others... well.. not so great! Sometimes you find one or more team members annoying and impossible to work with but I feel that it is part of our learning. We never get to choose our colleagues in work situations, so we should know how to work best in a group. Moreover, the grades of every individual depend on the final product of the group work, so you just can't take it casually. I am glad that my group for Entrepreneurship is just awesome. It is one of the longest and biggest projects and we have to come up with a business plan and a marketing plan and present it to a jury. We were able to choose our group members for this project but it wasn't so easy to do that. For starters, it was difficult to decide what criteria we should take into account while considering possible business plan partners. I mean, whether to look at people's profiles and pick people from useful backgrounds like Marketing, Finance, IT (if you are doing an IT project), or whether to just see if I was comfortable working with someone. I honestly feel that for this project, comfort and understanding matters more than backgrounds. We can come up with a good marketing strategy even if we don't have a marketing professional amongst us, but we can never put our hearts to a project where we don't like working with others. So, my team has ended up as being a great team and I am very happy with the progress so far. We managed to finalise and mutually agree upon a business idea (many other groups haven't yet finalised an idea) and we have started our research based on it. The idea looks so good for now that we can even consider it as a real entrepreneurship opportunity after MBA. Let's see how it shapes up!

On Saturday, our Chilean group member invited us to his home in Brussels for a team meeting followed by some Chilean food and wine. Everybody knows that Chilean wines are some of the best in the world, so it was of course a tempting offer. Our friend and his wife offered us tortillas with a choice of many spreads (I specially loved the Avocado spread) and various fillings. I ate 2 rolls and they were super delicious. The Chilean wine lived up to its name and I had 2 glasses of red wine with dinner. Now, after dinner our friend told us about a whiskey called Pisco. It is very popular in Chile and if mixed with Coke, it is called Piscola (which I think is a funny name). I am no fan of whiskies but this one was very smooth and I really liked it mixed with Cola and Ice. The train ride back home to Leuven was easy after that, because I couldn't feel the cold at all, thanks to Pisco!

Life is going good I feel. I am looking forward to 19th December, when I will take my flight to Delhi. However, we will have exams before that during the second week of December :(

Send in your wishes folks, they always work for me :)

Love,

Nicky

Autumn Break

If I ever had any doubts about the ability of time to fly, they have been put to rest now. It's been only some time that I came to Belgium, and I am already booking tickets for Delhi and looking forward to my winter vacation. Yeah folks, I will be in Delhi for Christmas and New Year's! I can't wait for it and guess what I am missing most in Leuven?? South Indian Food! Yeah, that's surprising for me too. Not family, not friends, not 'ghar ka khana', but I am missing good old Idli, Sambhar and Dosa here. Would anybody believe that? Maybe because that is the only thing that I could not find here at all so far. I am regularly in touch with family and friends, I cook my own 'Indian' meals but Idli-Sambhar is something that is just not to be found in our little town :(

We don't have any classes for this entire week and I am enjoying the break. Talking for hours with Siddharth, cleaning every minute inch of my studio, listening to songs, cooking nice meals etc. Of course I will also catch up on all the subjects where I am lagging behind and prepare for projects and exams, but that is secondary priority for this week.

Our classes have been progressing at a break-neck speed as usual and I did not even realise when subjects like Leadership, Human Resource Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Business and Law, and Entrepreneurship zoomed past us. The learning in each was immense and I am in awe of most of our professors here. For example, our Business and Law professor started the course with us by distributing some cases and questions to test our ethics and knowledge about Law. In the first class he told us jokingly that the purpose of his course was to keep us out of jail. The entire class laughed but when he discussed our answers to the cases and questions, we realised how unethical, hypocritical and unaware of the Law we were. If we indeed did those things in real corporate world, we would have been put in jail, and all the while we thought that we were being fair!! I do believe my professor's joke now and realise how difficult ethical choices are in the real world. Wow, I am already beginning to talk like an MBA!

Diwali came and went and I did not light a single cracker. I badly missed home during Diwali but thankfully I have very nice classmates. A chinese classmate called us home for tea on Diwali afternoon and we had dinner at an Indian friend's place. His wife had prepared a delicious Indian meal for us, which we ate while watching the classic 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'. We also played cards, because Diwali without gambling is utterly boring. I explained the concept of Diwali to many of our classmates who wanted to know the story behind the festival and why and how we celebrate it. I hope I gave them the correct version of the story, but anyway they would never know the difference :)

On the day after Diwali we visited a Krishna temple called Radhadesh in Ardenne. It is a beautiful place with rolling hills and dense forests. After the prayer ceremony at the temple we took a walk in the woods and it felt like going back to nature and connecting with the Supreme.

The second pic is of the castle in which the temple is situated.

I hope that after this one week break, I will emerge refreshed and full of energy, specially because it is Autumn and it is so beautiful here. I love taking walks in the park close to my studio and will post pics of the beautiful park soon.