Category: Happiness

New Year Resolutions – Oishi and me

My New Year Resolutions

  • Help Oishi settle down in her college life
  • Teach Oishi to drive
  • Start yoga once again and hopefully make a lifelong commitment to it
  • Feel comfortable biking on the road, alone
  • Sell my home and move to a different town
  • Work towards having a higher level of acceptance in life
  • Learn lots of new technology and software

Oishi’s New Year resolutions

  • Adjust to college life
  • Learn to drive
  • Get scholarships that might aid in my college financial obligation
  • Learn how to knit sweaters and my name and especially socks
  • Try to become an English teacher at the place where I currently teach math
  • Donate most of my stuffed animals to children’s hospitals and orphanages before college

A hearty HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone!

Happy New Year - 2015
Happy New Year – 2015

A few of my favorite things

Hindustan Cables Limited, the town I grew up in and left once I started college, had little to offer. Fun and happiness were limited to playing with friends on the dusty, worn-out roads, surprise visits to and from relatives (did not have phone), good grades, Ma’s animated storytelling and Baba’s wonderful salads. There was no TV or playground or video games or malls or restaurants or movie outings but giggles were ubiquitous.

Little, seemingly banal to other people, things still make me happy. Some of my favorite things that make me cheerful:

  • Enjoying a book with a cup of coffee on my couch
  • Sharing stories with my daughter and sharing a laugh
  • Unexpected act of kindness from a stranger
  • New technology (software and gadgets) – Two years ago, when I installed my Nest thermostat which had the promise of reducing my electricity and gas bill by 50% using Machine Learning, made me so happy that I couldn’t stop sharing with my friends and colleagues only to be stared at by them as though I have landed from a different planet
  • Solving a software problem or creating a new software other people can use
  • Being able to make someone smile
  • Discovering a new recipe and cooking for my daughter (Sometimes she says “You are a good cooker, Mama”)
  • Seeing a squeaky clean house after my cleaning service leaves
  • Writing a blog post
  • And of course watching this from my all-time favorite movie, Sound of Music

My Favorite Things

Sharmistha’s Book