On the Art of Queue Breaking

I have been wanting to write more on this blog for a while now, and an FB post by a friend on queue breakers inspired me to put down my thoughts on the subject. I have come to realize that every single time I am in a queue or a waiting list of any sort, a big part of my attentions are engaged not in figuring out if it's my turn next, but whether someone is going to try to cut the queue :P. And yes, I am reciting in my head what I am going to say to them as well. Here are some types of queue breakers that I have come across:

The Clueless One: This type of queue breaker just walks straight in or ahead as though not realizing there's a queue formed. This can be justified in situations where the queue is not too obvious, say folks sitting in a queue of chairs so are not as noticeable. But I have noticed this kind of behaviour even when there's a snaking queue with dozens of folks standing in it! What happens when you confront this person - usually a sheepish "Oh, there's a queue?!" and going and standing in line where they belong.

The Slimey One: Especially in places where the lines are formed quite haphazardly, you would always find one or two folks who try to take advantage of this. Did you just see them beside you? Suddenly they are in front of you! A firm questioning will lead to some face-making and return-accusations (But you weren't standing properly in line, how was I to know?!), but in most cases leads to a grumpy going back to place.

The I-Know-Somebody One: This type of queue breaker knows the doc or whoever it is the queue is waiting to meet. Could be true in some cases, but doesn't justify the behaviour whatsoever. When confronted, some of them do feel embarrassed and go and wait in line, but in some cases their behaviour might be encouraged by the oh-so-great ones on the other side of the door/front desk, and in that case all I can do is grumble.

The Can't-Care-Less One: We have all come across this type - the one who marches to the front of the line and rudely makes their presence felt. They don't care about being polite or standing in queue, and unfortunately there's no point in correcting this one. I have tried questioning as it's too tough for me to just let it go, but not to much effect.

The Ostensibly Polite One: When at the doc/paediatrician for example, sometimes folks come in for an emergency or requesting to go in earlier because they are in a rush for some reason. In most cases, I would prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt, as I don't like to think that folks use kids as excuses for cutting lines. But one incident that happened when D was a few months old really made me change my mind even about this scenario - A mother came up to me and said she would like to see the doc for "five minutes" as she had something urgent to ask her. I relented, and even though I had been waiting for more than half an hour, agreed to let her go in first. She stayed inside for a good 45 minutes, and I could hear from the outside that she had a list of do's and don't prepared to discuss with the doc about some overseas travel :O!!!!! Well, definitely made me more distrustful and taught me to ask more questions about the situation before making allowances.

And then there are times like when recently in a doctor's waiting room, I was about to challenge somebody for walking in before their turn and they came out in under a minute after handing over a wedding invitation :P. Unfortunately, that will not make me any less wary of queue breakers in the future.

I'm sure there are many more you can add to this list, so do tell me about them in the comments :).

All Charged Up?

My life seems to be filled with devices nowadays and lately half my thought process is used up in trying to keep these charged and ready to use. And yes, I like to live dangerously so that means even after that "red" indication appears it would take me just a little while more to go and put the device on charge. Here's what a normal day looks like:

Is the Laptop charged? Yes, it's not too bad and in any case I can always shift my position closer to a power source ;).

Is the Phone charged? Ah it's nearing the red already! Didn't I just charge it yesterday, damn that 3G and Bluetooth for getting the power low quicker than usual!

After walking like crazy to increase my step count on my Fitbit Flex, I realize I'm not wearing it on my wrist as I had taken it off to charge :P.

It's been ages since I read something, is my Kindle charged? Ah yes thankfully it is :).

At the end of the day, my son comes up to me and asks for the iPad for some playtime. Oh No! I've completely forgotten to charge it :P.

Of Meds and Moods

I am normally quite an upbeat person, and looking for the positive is something that comes naturally. But there come a few times when I find it really tough to be a happy trooper, and today is one of those. I just found out that my TSH (Thyroid) levels are still not under control after diligently continuing with my meds for the last 6 months. The only small positive there is that I've been having a very low dose and the doc has now increased it only slightly before needing to recheck in 6 weeks.

For most who don't know me personally, I am a person who hates having tablets of any sort - usually homeopathy works wonders for me, and I don't have to resort to standard medication much, and even homeo I avoid too much of. So in the last few months I've already been moaning and groaning about needing to take that thyroid tab every morning (not to mention the resultant Calcium tab since apparently the Thyronorm "leeches" my calcium!). The very fact that I need to continue something all my life just brings out my worst side, but I've been having the tabs nevertheless, simply because I'm too scared to stop them :(.

Well, all this post is trying to achieve is to bring out my fears, my irritation, and yet also establish the fact that I just have to lump it don't I. Sigh!

Letter to a Stranger - 1

This one is inspired from Monika's series (like this one)...



To the "Dude" who was standing behind me at the ATM,

Don't judge the person ahead of you in line, just because I took a little more time than normal and because you felt unable to spend that extra 2 minutes in your overwhelmingly busy schedule. And you probably assumed that since I'm a woman I "obviously" will take more time. Have you never tried to withdraw a large amount of money and found that the number of notes are too much, which means swipe again, enter again and wait for the notes again. And then do it again one more time for the remaining amount.

Maybe you never have to withdraw that type of cash, cos you're a cool dude and you can drop in at the ATM anytime, but I was withdrawing it for my dad who likes to take it as one large sum every month. And I had already visited one ATM that was out of order, and was probably in more of a hurry than you were as I was on the way to pick up my son from school too.

So dude, chill! And don't try to put across your point by sarcastically throwing a "Finished?" at me as I'm leaving.



Mon, this is a brilliant idea, I totally needed that out of my system!!

A short(?) recap

And well I'm at it again, berating myself every other day for never being able to stick to that much needed exercise schedule. And if one more person sees me and says "Why do YOU need to exercise?" I will really tell them :)!! I mean, have you seen my post-C-Section (that's one excuse long gone!) paunch ?!

So to amuse myself, and hopefully you too, (and find material for that Day 4 post ;)) I thought I should make a list of home exercise schedules that I tried, and somehow or the other didn't work for me.

1. P90 - This is one of the easiest ones from Beachbody (yeah you read that right ;)). They have a really well known one called P90X, but I wanted to start from the basic version and work my way up. Overall, it was quite a good option. Short, simple exercises, with a good set of stretching thrown in. The neck stretches especially were very good for my cervical spondylosis issues, never needed to do my therapeutic stretches when I did this. Did this on and off for a month, stopped, restarted etc etc. It basically gets a bit repetitive and boring after a while, of course you are supposed to progress to the next step that I never did ;).
2. P90X - The real mean version of the one above, it's raved about by most exercise enthusiasts who've tried it. Longer routines, so a bit more difficult to fit in, not to mention the intensity is about a quadzillion+ more than what I can ever manage! Tried it for all of 1 day, and then went back to endless loop of above.
3. Turbo Jam: Dancey routine from Beachbody, nice for a change, but did not like the lesser amount of stretching. Didn't feel it was great for my knees.
4. Turbo Fire: Much faster, much dancier version of above. I have two left feet. Enough said.
5. Leslie Sansone's Walks: This is a very nice set of videos, totally approachable, very simple set of steps, seems ideal for someone like me. The 1 mile walk is only about 20 minutes long, so great to fit into any day. Why I still didn't manage to stick to it - NO IDEA!!!!

Other than these I have tried the gym, power yoga etc at various times of life, but even with being a SAHM I am not keen on getting into something where I will have to devote exactly that same hour every day, doesn't work for me as a zillion things seem to come up that need my attention exactly between 11 and 12 on that very day. 

So here I was, again at square one, and I finally decided to start somewhere and went and joined a yoga class that functions along with my daughter's karate class - this way I'm anyway going to be there so no time lost - Wish me luck!

And yes, if anyone wants to partner up and join me in trying one of these schedules, I'd love to do that too ;). After all 23rd time may be lucky I guess!

This post is for Day 4 of #marathonbloggers. Do check out our FB group if you would like to make one post every day in the month of December.

It's a new year !

And Resolution time of course ;) I usually refrain from making resolutions as I never manage to keep them :O but there are some this year which I (hopefully!) am already on the path of:

1. No new clothes in 2012 - Overflowing cupboards, 4 unstitched blouses and 3 salwar-kameez materials that lie inside taunt me everytime I take out clothes to wear. I keep giving away clothes (3 times last year) and yet it's like an Akshayapatra and clothes are always falling out. I usually try to limit wastage in stuff like water/electricity/groceries/even LPG consumption that I thought it's time I included this area of my life too. So - also to be announced to all family members who might feel the need to buy me any - no buying or being gifted clothes this year.

2. Finding my abs - That's a more fun way to put it than to talk about losing flab ;). My second child is now going to be 4 years old and having been pregnant is no longer an excuse (even to myself) for the state my abs (hidden under layers) are in! Have been checking out lots of Home Exercise programs (mostly from Beachbody) and I'm quite comfortable with the starting levels of P90 as well as Turbo Jam. Going to attack both these, either in separate cycles or as a combination - done with 1 week of TJ already, wish me luck to keep at it !! This one is also important because my family has a history of neck and back problems, some of which I'm already facing, and regular exercise is sooo important.

3. Organize Organize Organize - this has so many levels to it it's scary. From accounting to remembering to check if my maid has washed the tiffin boxes for the next day, on some days I have no clue where to start. I've tried making checklists, but then forgotten to look at the checklist :X. So here I go with setting reminders for everything I can think of, and hoping that's going to be better than my previous attempts. The hitch is to actually perform the action as soon as the reminder comes, or I am capable of forgetting within 10 mins :(.

4. Green green green :) - this is something I've been trying to do in 2012 with composting and kitchen gardening, so hope to keep at it. I have started using an organic detergent for clothes washing, but my experience is that to try a do-or-die approach for this stuff will drive me and everyone around me a bit crazy. So if i can't get that stain out, I still reach for the Cuffs-and-Collars! Until the time I can effortlessly use organic means I will just try to progress a step at a time :).

5. Schedule Schedule Schedule ;) - this could be part of point 3 but this one is aimed more towards my time spent with the children. Somedays when I'm feeling tired or watching something interesting on TV :O I feel lazy to read that bed-time story or to sit and play that game with the kids. And then feel really bad about it afterwards. So I'm hoping to have a loose time-table for the way we spend time. D atleast is old enough to know what a time-table means so we can have lots of fun setting it up, and then she knows what to expect :).

This list is getting dangerously long, so I think I should stop here for now and keep the rest for next year ;). Bye Bye Bye !

Favourite 3 Idiots Moments

While watching the movie 3 idiots for atleast the 10th time I tried to write down the quotes/dialogues which make this movie memorable for me:

1. Us din hamne human nature ke baare me kuch seekha -

Jab dost fail hota hai, tab dukh hota hai,

Par jab dost first aata hai, tab ZYAADA dukh hota hai !!!!

2. Can you tell us how an induction motor starts?

Brrrm.. Brrrrm Brrrrrrrrrrrm.. !!!

3. Dono taangein tudvaake pairon pe khada hona seekha hai sir, Aap apni naukri rakh leejiye, main apna attitude rakh leta hoon.

4. Tu to meri pen le gayi - the guy who played the Chatur character did so much justice to the role he should be known as the 4th Idiot !! :)