haven't blogged for quite some time now....it seems like I was waiting for life to move on but now looking back, I realize that life has 'happened' in this time and I have to capture its highlights here!!!

Let's see....I made an interesting trip to Trivandrum to do some training...it was fun, challenging, and I think I discovered new aspects of Indian culture. I did an interesting workshop on 'Emotional Intelligence' and another one on 'Personal Productivity.' The E.I. program was for a bunch of senior professionals - mostly managers and project leads...it was interesting to see how much we neglect or have forgotten of our emotional world....for them, it was a revelation of sorts to realize that behavior is an output of one' s emotional world....when we are happy, we dance and sing; when we are sad, we sit and brood. It's just unbelievable that even in our workplace, we bring this inner world and it has a huge impact on the way we interact with our colleagues, our clients, etc.

The P.P. workshop was equally interesting...this was for individual contributors....lively group that participated well and sort of did self-evaluation to see where they could change. The incredible part was how the entire group set about concluding the workshop by 'teaching' each other something new.....we learnt to meditate, we learnt to de-stress when at work, we took up community service projects; we learnt about new facets of MS Outlook; wow...for me it was indeed a highly satisfying workshop.

I must say that it was very difficult for me one particular weekend - I lost one of my pets - Kaiser....he was a Weimaraner and had been with my family for almost 9 years. It is so difficult to accept death, no matter how often you've encountered it...it still hurts....I think I knew that it was time for him to go, I was schooling myself to be practical and objective, yet when it did happen, emotions took over. One of the most challenging things I had to do the very next day was to go and train for a bunch of seniors, and all I could think of was Kaiser. Anyways, I lived through the day, survived it, and have moved on. Rana, my other pet, has really taken charge of the healing process for all of us at home. He's there all the time, giving unconditional love, a huge bundle of never-ending energy and playfulness.

How does one survive competition in the professional world? How does one grapple with reality and still choose to go on with determination and optimism? When you hear about people surviving professionally even though they have low or no ethics, the easiest thing is to mourn about it and say 'life is unfair.' I wonder if there is final retribution of sorts...I would like to see whether 'what goes around, comes around' is true, after all. Professionally, we've been creating a whole lot of new stuff and diversifying at a good pace. That keeps my spirits up!!!

Well, I think I've sort of covered my life in the last few weeks...so much more has happened, but I think I got the highlights in this post, and that should do!!!

The world is a beautiful place to be in, our lives are wonderful gifts, our family and friends are the best that could have happened to us, so what more could we ask for? Nothing, absolutely...and that's final!!!