A Civic sense..

I had started on this across the seven sea relocation, drooling over the thona kaykal this whole thing was supposed to offer me. Now after a month of doing almost next to nothing, I have found myself in a spot that is very familiar to me - the edge of being broke. I had had enough of being broke in Trivandrum, to shift to Bangalore to continue being broke and onto a continuation in Hyderabad of the same. I had expected a monastic existence in the US was what the doctor would prescribe and had gone ahead with the very difficult choice of moving here without C.

Now suddenly nothing makes much sense. I am stuck at home with no TV, no movies, no one to talk to and no car to go anywhere. To top it all off my bank balance is steadily dwindling. And if that weren't bad enough, I went to an ATM to get cash to buy lunch, the ATM refused to provide me any money and to add to the injury, refused to give me back my ATM. Then I realized that the check card was a temporary one and it was high time it would have expired. So now I have three dollars in my wallet. Not that I would need a lot many notes in my wallet to sit at home and watch infomercials on the basic channels which come free with Comcast.

In the morning, while my laundry was being done, I took out my ten dollar, goodwill secondhand roller blades and headed out to the tennis court (hah!) to try roller blading for a while. Well in case anyone is wondering why the tennis court - I do not yet know how to stop very well and you can imagine what would happen if I try something on the very sloping roads in front of my house. But the cold got to me, it got to my bones and I had to hang up my blading shoes and think of other things to do while my clothes were being done. So that sent me jogging to the gym and a few sets of heavy shoulder presses and lat pulls followed.

Now I am sitting here and thinking of how to get enough money to buy a car once my social security number comes. Again, it needs to be seen if the social security card actually gets here to my mailbox, considering that my name is not there anywhere on the lease (which might explain why I did not get my debit card which was sent weeks back). Keeping my fingers crossed that both the debit card and social security number comes soon, and hoping that someone sells me a Honda Civic for less than three thousand bucks...

Does anyone know anyone in Atlanta selling a car?

A jab in the face

Its been a month that I've been in Atlanta and when I look back I am not so sure what I did this last month. My new year was wasted in the New Delhi International Airport with a Canadian settled Indian lady and her obese son sharing the dinner table with me at the New Delhi International terminal. I did not even notice the minute hand cross the 12 mark, and it was already 15 minutes past 12. What a way to welcome the new year into my life. Taking how my new year went, something tells me that life ain't going to be a lot of fun this coming year. I've had to leave my better half in Hyderabad and move to Atlanta on a long term assignment. Its going to be hard on both of us, with just two months together after getting married. We had not even gotten used to replying to people with 'Yes, I am married', or introducing the other as 'Husband/Wife' to friends.

Settling here in the US was a cakewalk compared to last time. There was no roaming around in downtown in the middle of the night with two suitcases and no idea where to go or not even the search for accommodation in places where drug dealers were quite conspicuously standing outside. This time around, I already had an apartment waiting for me thanks to my colleague who got here two weeks ahead of me. And how hard is it to settle into an empty life?

Finally after 4 weeks of inactivity I finally decided to go and do something. I had always wanted to take boxing classes. So after a fair bit of googling, I narrowed it down to a place which is walkable from a Marta (Atlanta's metro rail) station. I took a free sample class from the place and decided to go ahead with the place. They killed me the second day and I could not even lift my arms after an hour. The speed bag is as tricky as it looks. Same goes for the double end bag. I can't even jump rope properly! But the fun part was my first real spar. There is nothing like getting your face smashed up by a Chinese dude.. :-)

Everyone should try this!

So when do I learn Tango...?