Experiences

It was a pissy, rainy, cold, and gloomy weekend. Everything was gray and wet. The sun didn't even make an effort to come out of the clouds. Breath condensed. Just the kind of weather that depresses M. It made me want to burst into tears as well. The rain ruined my plan of going to the Chicago Botanic Garden. I went to the mall instead. Northbrook mall is a fairly large, upmarket mall just about 1.5 miles from the hotel. Very unlike its namesake in Peoria. Anyhoo, the plan was to stay AWAY from the shops and watch a movie at the amc attached to the mall. Both plans went quite awry. Well, although I stopped before the "Date Night" poster (Steve Carell, Tina Fey), I chose to watch "Back Up Plan" instead. I like J Lo, so shoot me. I should've read the reviews, but I didn't, and put my blind faith in Good Movie Fairies. Alas, they didn't come through for me this time. The opening animation as the credits rolled should've been enough

It is your average conference room. Long oval table. Profusion of gray upholstered chairs. Gray carpet. Gray everything. I am sitting on one of the long sides of the table, facing a gentleman across. He is a study in brown -- shaggy sandy hair, brown shirt, brown horn rimmed glasses. He is not the only one I invited for the meeting. The other gentleman is late. Or MIA. We don't know. We had decided to start the meeting without him because we don't know whether he is going to make it. Oh he does, although it is more of an entry. He is a tall, lanky gentleman with Spanish good looks. He stops at the entrance and announces, "I will sit by the lady!" And walks to my side of the table, pulls up a chair next to me and sits down, even as his colleague is going, "Of course! You must! Heh heh!" The man next to me shrugs and says in heavily accented English, "You know - to help her," and turns and flashes his pearly whites at me. (He is one of

Finally got a laptop, cube, network access, and e-mail ID at office. I love the standardization in this country - it is as if I have never been away. I feel like a plug in component, ready to play. They use Dell laptops, Lotus Notes, and a cafeteria that works on exactly the same principles as Cat. Only the office building is nightmarish. It is spread out on the three limbs of a quadrangle. In the middle is the parking lot. All buildings are interconnected with walkways, staircases, and corridors. They are all strangely named as 53e and 64w. They don't use elevators in this office - they walk. Everybody must be putting in at least 2 - 3 miles of walking everyday. So here're the directions to the cafeteria from my cube: 1. Start at cube 2. Walk straight along an indistinguishable corridor for 3 mts 3. Turn right 4. Meander until you find a staircase 5. Climb down to 42 W 6. Walk left for 2 mts along another indistinguishable corridor until you find the wal