As I always like to say, inorder to survive in Richardson, Dallas, U.S., you have to be any one of the following:
1. Be sociable (That means you have to actually like the act of talking/interacting with people)
2. Own/rent a car (The trick is to get your company to pay for those expenses)
3. Be pretty (Especially if you're a woman)
Luckily, during my first 2 months in Dallas, there was always at least one team mate who knew how to drive a car. That helped fulfil our grocery/movie-theater needs. However, during the last 2 weeks of my stay, it was my team mate, Neha, who came to the rescue.
Mind you, Neha is a very pretty young girl. So naturally, anybody and everybody with half an ounce of brain would come to the aid of the Damsel in Distress. Even if she wasn't quite in Distress. And being Neha's loyal side-kick, I could tag along for perks as well. :D
Sigh. The things you do to get your things done. :D
Friday, February 27, 2009
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Ice, Ice Baby!
Yesterday, I went out with my teammates to ice skate.
All my friends know me for my absolute love for gravity. In other words, I can be pretty clumsy. So I tend to stay faaaar away from such activities.
My first experience with ice skating was around three weeks ago. Sundar, who was an amateur, gave me a few guidelines: Keep your knees bent and never fall backwards. I was determined to at least walk around the rink that evening. So after three tries, I managed to maintain my balance and walk the periphery of the rink.
It was nothing special really. Especially when you were forced to observe kids figure-skate around you. :D
But yesterday was a different story. As I started my usual slipping and sliding, a passive observer gave me a few tips: 'Look straight ahead and make your feet point in a v-shape.' I'm not sure how I got it so quickly but in less than 2 minutes, I was maintaining my balance with no difficulty at all. In less than 5 minutes, I had moved to the center of the rink.
To say in the least, I was ecstatic. Balance was just never my thing. I mastered the first few steps of an art form which I initially thought to be very tricky. And now I have the confidence to do more. :)
All my friends know me for my absolute love for gravity. In other words, I can be pretty clumsy. So I tend to stay faaaar away from such activities.
My first experience with ice skating was around three weeks ago. Sundar, who was an amateur, gave me a few guidelines: Keep your knees bent and never fall backwards. I was determined to at least walk around the rink that evening. So after three tries, I managed to maintain my balance and walk the periphery of the rink.
It was nothing special really. Especially when you were forced to observe kids figure-skate around you. :D
But yesterday was a different story. As I started my usual slipping and sliding, a passive observer gave me a few tips: 'Look straight ahead and make your feet point in a v-shape.' I'm not sure how I got it so quickly but in less than 2 minutes, I was maintaining my balance with no difficulty at all. In less than 5 minutes, I had moved to the center of the rink.
To say in the least, I was ecstatic. Balance was just never my thing. I mastered the first few steps of an art form which I initially thought to be very tricky. And now I have the confidence to do more. :)
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Some Old-fashioned American Hospitality
If I could chronicle my entire stay at 'Homestead Suites, Richardson' into the form of a movie, it would be a runaway box office hit. The movie would be a comedy where in the beginning, everything goes wrong but turns out fine in the end.
Ahem. I'm still waiting for the end though.
But here's how the movie would go:
A very beautiful, petite woman travels halfway across the world to the US of A. 'Would there be any aana motta growing on the trees?' Mocha wonders as she makes her way to the hotel.
Scene changes to where she enters the hotel room. She gasps in delight as she looks at the plush surroundings. 'Very nice' she murmurs to her room mate Kat. Who wouldn't be? Take a look at the pics yourself.
'Don't get yourself too comfy', Kat says. 'The hotel service is terrible'. Mocha rolls her eyes in response.
As the days go by, Mocha finds that Kat is right. The front desk 'help' are hostile people who take offense at everything. The manager is even more incompetent albeit slightly less impolite. As a result, Mocha and Kat suffer through weird hotel room rates, clogged bathtubs and ghostly smoke alarms (it sounds a bit like 'wheeeeeee') which go off only when Mocha and Kat are in the room and strangely goes quiet when a third person enters the scene. Regular weekly cleaning service? Yes, if you could redefine the term 'week'. Simple requests such as 'please, give me a detailed bill in only my name' processed? No way, Jose!
The climax is when Kat leaves for India. Mocha is living alone for a few days. But after one tiring day at work, she finds herself locked out of her own room. Wait a minute. She has already paid the bill. But none of the keys, including the masterkey, work.
'I'm sorry ma'am,' the night personnel informs her, after some investigation. 'You're going to have to spend the night in another room. The technician will be over only tomorrow morning.'
Oh boy, Mocha thinks. But she makes her way to the new room at 1 am in the night, after some office-related chores. She hopes to get a good night's sleep. Enter the NEW ghostly smoke alarm. This one goes a loud beeeep after every 180 seconds. Yes. She actually times it. This is while she tosses and turns in bed. Result: no sleep. And we're talking about a heroine who can sleep through the sounds of a bomb or with the sun right next to her pillow.
The next day morning, the technician arrives and works on the electronic lock. After a few new batteries and some reprogramming later, the door magically opens. But wait a second. The room hasn't been cleaned. And it was supposed to be cleaned on Monday-postponed-courtesy-the-lousy-staff-to-Thursday.
Mocha wearily makes her way to work.
What more surprises await our heroine, you- the audience- ask?
I'm sorry. You're going to have to wait like the rest of em.
Though I'm seriously worried about my - err, I mean - HER plight.
:)
Ahem. I'm still waiting for the end though.
But here's how the movie would go:
A very beautiful, petite woman travels halfway across the world to the US of A. 'Would there be any aana motta growing on the trees?' Mocha wonders as she makes her way to the hotel.
Scene changes to where she enters the hotel room. She gasps in delight as she looks at the plush surroundings. 'Very nice' she murmurs to her room mate Kat. Who wouldn't be? Take a look at the pics yourself.
'Don't get yourself too comfy', Kat says. 'The hotel service is terrible'. Mocha rolls her eyes in response.
As the days go by, Mocha finds that Kat is right. The front desk 'help' are hostile people who take offense at everything. The manager is even more incompetent albeit slightly less impolite. As a result, Mocha and Kat suffer through weird hotel room rates, clogged bathtubs and ghostly smoke alarms (it sounds a bit like 'wheeeeeee') which go off only when Mocha and Kat are in the room and strangely goes quiet when a third person enters the scene. Regular weekly cleaning service? Yes, if you could redefine the term 'week'. Simple requests such as 'please, give me a detailed bill in only my name' processed? No way, Jose!
The climax is when Kat leaves for India. Mocha is living alone for a few days. But after one tiring day at work, she finds herself locked out of her own room. Wait a minute. She has already paid the bill. But none of the keys, including the masterkey, work.
'I'm sorry ma'am,' the night personnel informs her, after some investigation. 'You're going to have to spend the night in another room. The technician will be over only tomorrow morning.'
Oh boy, Mocha thinks. But she makes her way to the new room at 1 am in the night, after some office-related chores. She hopes to get a good night's sleep. Enter the NEW ghostly smoke alarm. This one goes a loud beeeep after every 180 seconds. Yes. She actually times it. This is while she tosses and turns in bed. Result: no sleep. And we're talking about a heroine who can sleep through the sounds of a bomb or with the sun right next to her pillow.
The next day morning, the technician arrives and works on the electronic lock. After a few new batteries and some reprogramming later, the door magically opens. But wait a second. The room hasn't been cleaned. And it was supposed to be cleaned on Monday-postponed-courtesy-the-lousy-staff-to-Thursday.
Mocha wearily makes her way to work.
What more surprises await our heroine, you- the audience- ask?
I'm sorry. You're going to have to wait like the rest of em.
Though I'm seriously worried about my - err, I mean - HER plight.
:)
Sunday, October 26, 2008
'Life in these United States...'
Yes, I know. I haven't blogged.
The past few weeks had been a lil busy for me as there was a lot of work. Scrap that. There IS a lot of work. :)
Yesterday, my team mates and I went on a trip to a wildlife park called Fossil Rim Wildlife Center at Glen Rose, Texas. It's a sanctuary to certain species of deer, giraffes and a few other exotic animals such as the ostrich, rhino and cheetah. We left at 11 am and reached the park by 1 am.
The idea is to interact with these animals/birds by offering food to them (but obviously not the dangerous ones). The first bird we met on our way was the ostrich. It was daring enough to move towards the car as we slowed down. It was also aware that we had food and it kept incessantly pecking on the roof till one of us rolled down the windows and offered food.
Even though in reality deers are very shy and nervous creatures, the deers at the park were quite used to human presense. The Arabian oryx was the most friendly as each one of its kind kept approaching the cars to get more food. My personal favorite was the giraffe. It was so gentle!
We all were famished by the time we sat down for lunch at the picnic area around 3:30 pm. I had never been so happy to see rice and sambhar in my life! :D
After lunch, we found a petting zoo. That's where you could brush down or hold a few farmyard animals. It was a lil funny because the sheep and goats looked so huge around the tummy area that we all thought they were pregnant. As we were exiting the zoo, there was a board that said: 'No, we're NOT pregnant. We just have four-chambered stomachs!' I guess the zoo keepers were a bit tired of answering that question. ;)
On our way back, we saw more giraffes, bison and cheetah. The surrounding areas were beautiful and we even got a spectacular shot of a watering hole.
Here are a few pictures of the whole drive. Click here.
As we made our way back to Dallas, I thought that we were on our way back to the hotel. All of us were tired. But a team mate, Sundar, had other plans. We reached Richardson around 8pm. He took us to a dancing fountain which was near our office. The dancing fountain itself was beautiful and Sundar made us all to splash around in the water. I definitely perked up after that unexpected shower. :D
We reached the hotel by 9pm, all drenched, and then we spent some time reviewing the photos and movie clips that we shot during the day.
Today, the girls (Kat, Poornima, Youngsil and I) spent the day shopping. I thought I'd get bored stiff but this time we shopped for accessories. So, YES! As usual, I went ahead and bought lots and lots and.. LOTS. :) I'm not kidding people, we girls had enough of shopping bags to fit the trunk of our car.
Anyway, one month down. Hopefully less than one month to go.
Yes. I'm homesick. :(
The past few weeks had been a lil busy for me as there was a lot of work. Scrap that. There IS a lot of work. :)
Yesterday, my team mates and I went on a trip to a wildlife park called Fossil Rim Wildlife Center at Glen Rose, Texas. It's a sanctuary to certain species of deer, giraffes and a few other exotic animals such as the ostrich, rhino and cheetah. We left at 11 am and reached the park by 1 am.
The idea is to interact with these animals/birds by offering food to them (but obviously not the dangerous ones). The first bird we met on our way was the ostrich. It was daring enough to move towards the car as we slowed down. It was also aware that we had food and it kept incessantly pecking on the roof till one of us rolled down the windows and offered food.
Even though in reality deers are very shy and nervous creatures, the deers at the park were quite used to human presense. The Arabian oryx was the most friendly as each one of its kind kept approaching the cars to get more food. My personal favorite was the giraffe. It was so gentle!
We all were famished by the time we sat down for lunch at the picnic area around 3:30 pm. I had never been so happy to see rice and sambhar in my life! :D
After lunch, we found a petting zoo. That's where you could brush down or hold a few farmyard animals. It was a lil funny because the sheep and goats looked so huge around the tummy area that we all thought they were pregnant. As we were exiting the zoo, there was a board that said: 'No, we're NOT pregnant. We just have four-chambered stomachs!' I guess the zoo keepers were a bit tired of answering that question. ;)
On our way back, we saw more giraffes, bison and cheetah. The surrounding areas were beautiful and we even got a spectacular shot of a watering hole.
Here are a few pictures of the whole drive. Click here.
As we made our way back to Dallas, I thought that we were on our way back to the hotel. All of us were tired. But a team mate, Sundar, had other plans. We reached Richardson around 8pm. He took us to a dancing fountain which was near our office. The dancing fountain itself was beautiful and Sundar made us all to splash around in the water. I definitely perked up after that unexpected shower. :D
We reached the hotel by 9pm, all drenched, and then we spent some time reviewing the photos and movie clips that we shot during the day.
Today, the girls (Kat, Poornima, Youngsil and I) spent the day shopping. I thought I'd get bored stiff but this time we shopped for accessories. So, YES! As usual, I went ahead and bought lots and lots and.. LOTS. :) I'm not kidding people, we girls had enough of shopping bags to fit the trunk of our car.
Anyway, one month down. Hopefully less than one month to go.
Yes. I'm homesick. :(
Sunday, October 5, 2008
'The Eagle has landed'
With reference to the title, I guess my airplane could be likened to an eagle and well, I didn't really land on the moon but rather Texas.
You heard right. I'm as of now, standing on American soil. Ok, scrap that. To be technically correct, I'm as of now, lying down on my bed in a hotel which has been built on American soil.
For y'all who know me really well, you'd be thinking: 'OMG. This girl has finally obtained her dream.' Umm, yeah sort of. :)
I reached Dallas, Texas last Sunday. The journey consisted of a total of 19 hours on two different flights and I'm not counting the transit time at Frankfurt. But it was a great trip.
My flight from Bangalore to Frankfurt was pretty uneventful since it was a night flight. The man sitting next to me was a pharmaceutical representative on his way to attend a conference at Frankfurt. It was pretty sweet to see the way he was enthusiastic about everything down to the food served. It was, without a doubt, his first time flying. :)
Frankfurt International Airport is pretty big and I had to take a sky-train to reach my terminal. Even though my transit time was around 3 hours, I couldn't go around the airport much. So I took the opportunity to get online and email my family that I was indeed still alive. Simple task? You wish! You'd think that the numerous computer terminals would slightly resemble our computer keyboards. Not even close. These keyboards have keys for everything. Two for space bar (which don't even say 'space'). Two suspicious looking ones that ended up being the ones for left-click and right-click of a mouse. Letter keys placed totally out of sync.. well, you get the picture. To say in the least, you NEED a certification to use those terminals. And this is coming from a software engineer.
So in the span of four minutes (and EUR 4), I managed to log onto gmail, click compose, select the appropriate email address that belongs to my sister and type out the following email to her:
"i reached frankfurt stop flight leaves in one hour stop tell everybody stop this computer is dumb stop bye"
I spent the next one hour trying to analyse how the others fared at such similar terminals. Not very well, let me assure you. :)
The flight from Frankfurt to Dallas, predictably, consisted predominantly of Americans and Germans. I took my place next to an Israeli man, Rafi, and an American woman, Rhonda.
"It's my lucky day", said Rafi, "I never got to sit in the middle. Now that I did, I'm sitting between two women."
This man, fellow ladies, was ONE charmer. :)
It took me very lil time to get comfortable with Rafi and find out about his interesting background. Being a software engineer himself, Rafi too could empathise with the strain of being one and declared that he would stick around in the field for only 2-3 more years before he called it quits and get a job that he really liked.
I've always been fascinated by people who are a product of different cultures and race. Give me a person who's quarter Irish, native American, Thai and Mexican and has spent half of his life travelling around Asia, and I think I'd marry him for it. :D
Rafi was an Israeli, whose father was a Muslim and mother a Christian and who had studied for five years in Cape Town, South Africa. And let's not mention his foreign trips. Ladies and gentlemen, I was in heaven. :D
I asked a lot about his culture and was surprised to hear that his own was a bit conservative as well. They actually practise arranged marriages and dowry! But it's practised a bit differently from mine. The groom, it seems, provides the house, gold and money for the bride. The bride, on the other hand, provides the electronic items necessary for proper functioning of the household. So it's very common to hear mothers-in-law not being happy with what the grooms have given their daughters. Hmm. Interesting twist, don't you think?
Rafi himself had given arranged 'alliance' a try, but couldn't wait to break off his engagement a year later. He said, 'I don't want a woman who can't make her own decisions and whose mother still picks out her clothes. I want someone who's independent and looks beyond money and gold.' Same here, brother, same here. Umm. Except I'd want a man and not a woman, thanks. :D
On Rafi's other side sat Rhonda. Rhonda was a very friendly Texan. Not many people go out of their way to make you comfortable, but she certainly did. 'Is it your first time going to the United States, sweetie?' she asked me. I nodded. 'You must be scared,' she said. 'Now don't you worry. It'll be alright, you hear?'
Rhonda grew up in a small town near Dallas. After a few years of growing up in the States, she went and did what she always wanted to do: live in Europe. So she packed her bags and flew to Italy. Learnt Italian, opened a shop that tailored to her 'big-boned' American clientele and spent 6 years of her life there. After that, she fell in love with an American who worked in a big enterprise in Romania. So they got married and she was on her way to joining him in Romania. 'Now, I get to learn Romanian', Rhonda said. 'It's just one more adventure!'
Sigh. Romantic, don't you think?
Anyway, travelling with these two people was delightful. Ten hours flew by (pun not intended) and we reached Fort Worth, Dallas.
I was a lil scared at the Passport Control. Hundreds and hundreds of tips/advice/do-s and don'ts went by in my head.
"What's the purpose of your visit?" the Immigration officer asked.
"Business", I squeaked.
"How long will you be here?"
"Four to six weeks."
Scrutiny of passport. Fingerprints taken. Stamping on the passport.
"Welcome to the United States, ma'am."
Whew!
A couple of hours later (which included goodbyes to Rhonda & Rafi and a taxi ride), I was brought to the hotel which would be my home for the rest of my stay in Texas.
Folks, I'm IN. :)
You heard right. I'm as of now, standing on American soil. Ok, scrap that. To be technically correct, I'm as of now, lying down on my bed in a hotel which has been built on American soil.
For y'all who know me really well, you'd be thinking: 'OMG. This girl has finally obtained her dream.' Umm, yeah sort of. :)
I reached Dallas, Texas last Sunday. The journey consisted of a total of 19 hours on two different flights and I'm not counting the transit time at Frankfurt. But it was a great trip.
My flight from Bangalore to Frankfurt was pretty uneventful since it was a night flight. The man sitting next to me was a pharmaceutical representative on his way to attend a conference at Frankfurt. It was pretty sweet to see the way he was enthusiastic about everything down to the food served. It was, without a doubt, his first time flying. :)
Frankfurt International Airport is pretty big and I had to take a sky-train to reach my terminal. Even though my transit time was around 3 hours, I couldn't go around the airport much. So I took the opportunity to get online and email my family that I was indeed still alive. Simple task? You wish! You'd think that the numerous computer terminals would slightly resemble our computer keyboards. Not even close. These keyboards have keys for everything. Two for space bar (which don't even say 'space'). Two suspicious looking ones that ended up being the ones for left-click and right-click of a mouse. Letter keys placed totally out of sync.. well, you get the picture. To say in the least, you NEED a certification to use those terminals. And this is coming from a software engineer.
So in the span of four minutes (and EUR 4), I managed to log onto gmail, click compose, select the appropriate email address that belongs to my sister and type out the following email to her:
"i reached frankfurt stop flight leaves in one hour stop tell everybody stop this computer is dumb stop bye"
I spent the next one hour trying to analyse how the others fared at such similar terminals. Not very well, let me assure you. :)
The flight from Frankfurt to Dallas, predictably, consisted predominantly of Americans and Germans. I took my place next to an Israeli man, Rafi, and an American woman, Rhonda.
"It's my lucky day", said Rafi, "I never got to sit in the middle. Now that I did, I'm sitting between two women."
This man, fellow ladies, was ONE charmer. :)
It took me very lil time to get comfortable with Rafi and find out about his interesting background. Being a software engineer himself, Rafi too could empathise with the strain of being one and declared that he would stick around in the field for only 2-3 more years before he called it quits and get a job that he really liked.
I've always been fascinated by people who are a product of different cultures and race. Give me a person who's quarter Irish, native American, Thai and Mexican and has spent half of his life travelling around Asia, and I think I'd marry him for it. :D
Rafi was an Israeli, whose father was a Muslim and mother a Christian and who had studied for five years in Cape Town, South Africa. And let's not mention his foreign trips. Ladies and gentlemen, I was in heaven. :D
I asked a lot about his culture and was surprised to hear that his own was a bit conservative as well. They actually practise arranged marriages and dowry! But it's practised a bit differently from mine. The groom, it seems, provides the house, gold and money for the bride. The bride, on the other hand, provides the electronic items necessary for proper functioning of the household. So it's very common to hear mothers-in-law not being happy with what the grooms have given their daughters. Hmm. Interesting twist, don't you think?
Rafi himself had given arranged 'alliance' a try, but couldn't wait to break off his engagement a year later. He said, 'I don't want a woman who can't make her own decisions and whose mother still picks out her clothes. I want someone who's independent and looks beyond money and gold.' Same here, brother, same here. Umm. Except I'd want a man and not a woman, thanks. :D
On Rafi's other side sat Rhonda. Rhonda was a very friendly Texan. Not many people go out of their way to make you comfortable, but she certainly did. 'Is it your first time going to the United States, sweetie?' she asked me. I nodded. 'You must be scared,' she said. 'Now don't you worry. It'll be alright, you hear?'
Rhonda grew up in a small town near Dallas. After a few years of growing up in the States, she went and did what she always wanted to do: live in Europe. So she packed her bags and flew to Italy. Learnt Italian, opened a shop that tailored to her 'big-boned' American clientele and spent 6 years of her life there. After that, she fell in love with an American who worked in a big enterprise in Romania. So they got married and she was on her way to joining him in Romania. 'Now, I get to learn Romanian', Rhonda said. 'It's just one more adventure!'
Sigh. Romantic, don't you think?
Anyway, travelling with these two people was delightful. Ten hours flew by (pun not intended) and we reached Fort Worth, Dallas.
I was a lil scared at the Passport Control. Hundreds and hundreds of tips/advice/do-s and don'ts went by in my head.
"What's the purpose of your visit?" the Immigration officer asked.
"Business", I squeaked.
"How long will you be here?"
"Four to six weeks."
Scrutiny of passport. Fingerprints taken. Stamping on the passport.
"Welcome to the United States, ma'am."
Whew!
A couple of hours later (which included goodbyes to Rhonda & Rafi and a taxi ride), I was brought to the hotel which would be my home for the rest of my stay in Texas.
Folks, I'm IN. :)
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Here's one that's not mine...
** This post is going to be very unoriginal. I've copy-pasted a forward that I had received in my email. There was more, but I've copied only what I thought was relevant (and I've changed a bit of it too). **
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death. The question was: What do women really want?
Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed and impossible query. But since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end.
He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone. The princess, the priests, the wise men, and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. When the last day had arrived, Arthur was at his wits end. Eventually, one of his ministers asked him to consult a very wise old woman who lived beyond the highest hills and the deepest oceans, for she would definitely have an answer.
He went beyond the highest hills and the deepest oceans to meet the old woman. His question thus: "What does a woman really want?"
She said, "To be in charge of her own life."
He instantly knew that the woman had uttered a great truth. And that Arthur's life would be spared.
And so it was.
The neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom.
:)
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death. The question was: What do women really want?
Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed and impossible query. But since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end.
He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone. The princess, the priests, the wise men, and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. When the last day had arrived, Arthur was at his wits end. Eventually, one of his ministers asked him to consult a very wise old woman who lived beyond the highest hills and the deepest oceans, for she would definitely have an answer.
He went beyond the highest hills and the deepest oceans to meet the old woman. His question thus: "What does a woman really want?"
She said, "To be in charge of her own life."
He instantly knew that the woman had uttered a great truth. And that Arthur's life would be spared.
And so it was.
The neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom.
:)
Sunday, August 3, 2008
"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...
... Can I be the fairest of them all?"
I'll admit. I have a beauty regime I strictly follow every Saturday evening. It's one of those ways I use to relax myself and I also do it so that I do not look horrible the following Monday morning.
When I told a guy friend about this, he started ranting about the evils of cosmetic products and procedures and finished off with "Whatever happened to natural beauty?" The very next moment, he got distracted by a very pretty woman, wearing at least an inch-thick of makeup, walking by.
Once back in college, while I was talking to a classmate, he looked at my arms and asked "Why don't you shave your arms? And your skin tone seems uneven. Why don't you do something about it?" I was surprised that he noticed all of this. I asked him, "Why do you give so much importance to looks? Why is it a definite must for all girls to look pretty even if it's through artificial means?" He shrugged his shoulders and said "Girls have to look pretty. That's the way it is."
Then we have women who sometimes involve themselves in some competition of sorts. Who's the prettiest? Who's the slimmest? Who's the trendiest?
We are all equally guilty of setting standards when it comes to beauty and rules about what we should and shouldn't be. And being humans, we are apt to being insecure when we don't meet those standards and we succumb to the pressure of it all. That's when we ramp up to do something about it. So if cosmetics helps the process, why be a hypocrite and crib rather than accept it?
I understand that it can be a vicious circle. The latest of products claim to make you look younger/fairer/prettier which makes you buy them which sets the new trend for 'beauty' and so on...
I wish I lived in a world where external appearances meant nothing. But I don't. What I can do is either choose to be unconcerned about it and be happy with what I have even though it may mean being one of the uglier ones or I could get 'help', be more prettier and be fine with it anyway.
What I'm trying to say is that natural beauty is almost a thing of the past. It's very rare to find. Cosmetics, when not used in excessive amounts, are good and help ease at least some of the pressure a person finds himself/herself under.
Unless something radical is done to change the concept of beauty or people are suddenly blessed with tremendous amounts of self-esteem, cosmetics will always be used. By men and women alike.
So get used to it.
I'll admit. I have a beauty regime I strictly follow every Saturday evening. It's one of those ways I use to relax myself and I also do it so that I do not look horrible the following Monday morning.
When I told a guy friend about this, he started ranting about the evils of cosmetic products and procedures and finished off with "Whatever happened to natural beauty?" The very next moment, he got distracted by a very pretty woman, wearing at least an inch-thick of makeup, walking by.
Once back in college, while I was talking to a classmate, he looked at my arms and asked "Why don't you shave your arms? And your skin tone seems uneven. Why don't you do something about it?" I was surprised that he noticed all of this. I asked him, "Why do you give so much importance to looks? Why is it a definite must for all girls to look pretty even if it's through artificial means?" He shrugged his shoulders and said "Girls have to look pretty. That's the way it is."
Then we have women who sometimes involve themselves in some competition of sorts. Who's the prettiest? Who's the slimmest? Who's the trendiest?
We are all equally guilty of setting standards when it comes to beauty and rules about what we should and shouldn't be. And being humans, we are apt to being insecure when we don't meet those standards and we succumb to the pressure of it all. That's when we ramp up to do something about it. So if cosmetics helps the process, why be a hypocrite and crib rather than accept it?
I understand that it can be a vicious circle. The latest of products claim to make you look younger/fairer/prettier which makes you buy them which sets the new trend for 'beauty' and so on...
I wish I lived in a world where external appearances meant nothing. But I don't. What I can do is either choose to be unconcerned about it and be happy with what I have even though it may mean being one of the uglier ones or I could get 'help', be more prettier and be fine with it anyway.
What I'm trying to say is that natural beauty is almost a thing of the past. It's very rare to find. Cosmetics, when not used in excessive amounts, are good and help ease at least some of the pressure a person finds himself/herself under.
Unless something radical is done to change the concept of beauty or people are suddenly blessed with tremendous amounts of self-esteem, cosmetics will always be used. By men and women alike.
So get used to it.
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