Category Archives: Musing

R.I.P Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)

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When you use your iPhone, iPad, iPod or Mac today, take a moment to reflect on the genius that was Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, inventor and innovator extraordinnaire passed away early this morning (Singapore time). Now I am not a techie by any stretch of imagination and don’t even use an Apple computer, but I do use a iPhone and am very seriously thinking of buying the iPad 2 and that is the reason for this post.

The iPhone is so simple to use that even people like me can use them for so many things. I don’t think I can ever go back to using a normal phone! It has everything I need for my life right now, so thank you Steve Jobs. My condolences to his family, friends and loved ones. The world is indeed a poorer place today without you in it.

Here’s a video that’s been doing the rounds where Steve Jobs talks to the class of 2005 in Stamford at their commencement ceremony about “How to live before you die”

Ticketing tales

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On Tuesday I finally booked our tickets for our holidays this year. We’re going to Chennai this year as opposed to Mumbai since my sister is there and my parents will come there from Mumbai. Also since we’re going on a very short trip, we just don’t have the time to do two cities. We are going on a very truncated holiday this year for a couple of reasons – one, since I just joined this new position, I do not have many days of leave and two, GG has her ballet concert in the third week of December and she wanted to be a part of it so we leave the day after the concert.

The concert is on a Sunday and so we wanted to leave on the first available flight on Monday morning. That happened to be Jet Airways. I have flown this airline before and have liked the service they provide although both I was not too crazy to fly this particular airline to Chennai as it is a single aisle aircraft. Both S and BB didn’t want to fly this airline, but because it was the only one with a flight in the morning, we decided to go for it. Now the fun starts in my story. I checked the prices around 2 pm and it should me around S$ 2200 for 4 tickets. When I got home and tried buying the tickets around 6 pm, it had increased to S$ 2700. I was angry but still went through the online reservations system as I didn’t want to waste one day of the 13 we were going to have. Then there was some issue with my credit card and the transaction didn’t go through. When I redid the booking, the cost was now more than S$ 3000! I got angry and checked the fares for Singapore Airlines. The fares there were only S$ 2400, but the flight was at night. That was it, I decided to go with SIA and booked my tickets. I then wrote to Jet Airways about my experiences and so far, they’ve still not given me a reasonable explanation (one that I can understand) for this whole fiasco. Initially I thought of not blogging about this, but given what happened, I think I should do it so if there is anyone out there reading this blog (the one or two people maybe, hopefully?), it’s a lesson to them.

Image courtesy airlines.net

Image courtesy of airliners.net

Below are my two emails to Jet and their responses:

My initial note to them using the feedback form on their website

Hi,

I tried reserving tickets to Chennai yesterday. When I checked the fares around 2 pm, I found a figure which was acceptable to me. Then when I tried booking the tickets around 6 pm, the rate had increased by around $500 compared to 2 pm. During the transaction, I had a query for which I tried calling your office here in Singapore, but was on hold for 15 minutes during which my transaction time had exceeded and I could not make the booking. Then when I tried again, this time the rate increased by another S$200. This means that between 2 pm and 6 pm, the rate for 4 tickets increased by S$700! This inspite of not having icon near the rates to show that they are increasing or even letting me know before I book the tickets that the rates will be increasing! When I tried your office at that point (it was around 6:10 pm), I got a recorded message saying that the office is closed for the day. I got fed up and booked my tickets using another carrier. I then see an email which came to me at 8:15 pm saying that my tickets are on hold. I had already booked my tickets with another airline by then so this was of no use to me. I do not think this is the right thing to do. I would appreciate if someone called me or wrote to me with an explanation on why this happened. I have flown Jet many times and have always had a good time with the airline, but when something like this happens even before you fly, it makes you want to rethink using the airline.

The first response from Jet

Thank you for your mail and contacting Jet Airways.

We would like to mention that fares are dynamic and can change based on flight loads, seasonality and promotions. 

With regard to the contents of your communication, kindly allow us to mention that we have various classes / levels of fares loaded in our system taking into account different factors such as demand, season, traffic on any given route, cancellations etc. 

May we assure you that we are not in any way trying to discourage our passengers as a matter of fact these fares are designed to benefit our passengers. 

We look forward to your support and apologize for all the inconvenience caused. 

Huh? Maybe I am thick, but I don’t think they actually answered what I asked them

My response to this email:

Thank you for your email. I don’t think that there were so many people trying to book the exact same date combination as I was within that 4  hour period that the prices increased by S$ 700. I don’t see how the prices can be adjusted so much in such a short period of time. If what you say is correct, then the prices should have stayed at that increased rate of about S$ 3000+ for 4 tickets to Chennai on the same dates that I booked. I just checked your website for the same dates and the prices are in the range of S$ 2600, which is about S$ 400 lower than what was quoted to me when I tried to book the ticket. Does this mean that the time we book the ticket has a bearing on the prices? I would like a response from you since if this is true, the next time I fly the airline, I will know the best time to book my tickets.

Their reply

Thank you for your mail and contacting Jet Airways.
With regards to the same, the Online Booking Engine on jetairways.com quotes fares from a pricing database, which is delinked from the actual system where the booking is made. The reason why we have used this approach, is to optimize the speed of the system, so that our guests do not experience delayed responses. 
Once the guest confirms his purchase, as a check point, the system then reconfirms the actual fare in the backend reservation system. If it is a match, it goes ahead with ticketing and if not, the repricing page is shown, where the guest needs to reconfirm the new price to proceed. Note, at this point in time, the guest can withdraw his willingness to purchase the ticket. 

The probability of the reprice page to show up is less than 1% as we have automated mechanisms to pick up the fares dynamically from the system based on an internal logic flow. Note, there can be times where the guest cancels the reprice page request and tries again from the start. The probability of the old fare being shown is very high as the system takes time to then update the new fare into the database. 

I am not going to reply to this email, but will think multiple times the next time I fly this airline. I used to be such a fan, but now, they’ve lost a paying passenger! C’est la vie…

Twins

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Do they look alike? ….. Do they have same/similar natures/characters?

These two are the first questions that most new acquaintances ask when they hear I have fraternal twins. So here’s a crash course on twins followed by some of the idiosyncrasies of BB & GG

There are basically two types of twins – monozygotic and dizygotic.

Monozygotic twins are otherwise known as identical twins and are always the same sex. This occurs naturally and anyone can become an identical twin mom. The incidence of occurance is about three twin births for every 1000 births worldwide, although some countries and cultures may have a preponderance for identical twins compared to others.

Dizygotic or fraternal twins come about when there are two seperate pregnancies which happen at the same time. This means that most fraternal twins are nothing more than siblings who happen to be born at the same time. They would be just like any siblings, except that they share a birthday. The most common fraternal twins statistically speaking are the boy/girl twins with girl/girl and boy/boy being the other types. Incidentaly, most people react this way when they hear about BB & GG – “Wow, so lucky and rare!” Earlier I used to explain to them about how statistically a boy/girl is more common at 50% but now I just smile and take it as a compliment. The chances of someone having fraternal twins is however higher if you do happen to have twins in your maternal side of the family. This gene for twins is passed on through the mother and may pass generations before it appears again. Also even if you are a fraternal female twin, there is no guarantee that your pregnancy will result in twins.

This is what happened in my family – my maternal grandmother had twins in her family and my mom’s sister had fraternal boy/girl twins. However, my cousin (the girl twin) had a singleton baby and the gene skipped her to land in me for our generation.

Here is a link to an interesting page about twin myths from across the world. Now on to

GG: My first born, older by 2 minutes because she did not show a lot of growth in the uterus. In fact it was because of her that I had to have a caesarean to get the babies out as my ob-gyn felt she may not be able to ‘survive the trauma of birth’ . She is bossy, opinionated and very strong mentally. She’s a very girly girl and loves her dolls, animals, plush toys and the colour pink. She loves dancing and is currently learning ballet. She also goes to Indian classical music lessons. She wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, but now on learning the kind of hand work you need to put in to get to medical school, she is evaluating her options. Her hobbies include playing with her dolls, reading and playing on my iPhone and the computer. Her current favourites are the Winx Club girls and she just started on her first crush on Justin Beiber! I’m looking forward to her growing up so that we can be friends….

BB: He was born after GG and she rarely misses an opportunity to let him know. Of the two he’s more easy going and will agree to our wishes, but these days I see signs of a temper emerging. He is stronger academically, but lazy and his handwriting is a cause of concern for his parents and teachers! He is also a bit less mature than GG, but hopefully will catch up soon. He is very mechanically minded and finds maths very easy. Like most boys he loves vehicles, mostly cars and planes. He wanted to be a pilot earlier, but now has revised it to being either a plane or a car designer. BB also learns Indian classical music like his sister, but he goes under duress! His hobbies include playing with his cars. watching TV and playing with our iPhones & computers. His favourite shows are those which have cars/planes as the central theme and he’s all set to watch the Singapore leg of the Grand Prix with his dad this weekend. Testosterone alert in my house!

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring…

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When it rains in the mornings, just when the students go to school and office drones go to work, the resulting jams are exactly like what happened today. This morning it started to rain around 6 am and by 7 am the jams outside the primary schools near my house needed to be seen to believed! There is a school just next to our building and it took us almost 10 minutes to just get out of the carpark and into the road. Next jam area was the one near GG & BB’s school and by the time I was dropped at my busstop, I was ready to call it a day (not that I need many excuses, if you have read my previous posts)

The initial bus ride was not bad considering the traffic earlier, but there was this hug traffic jam at the Whitley Road exit and then another major snarl near the Clark Quay MRT station and this meant I reached work around 15 minutes later than usual. Luckily I have a Skype meeting with someone around the time I normally leave so can make up the late entry.

During my commute I got thinking about the rains in Mumbai, especially during the time when I was in school. Nowadays it does not rain as much as it used to rain some 20 – 25 years back (Aagh! now I’ve given away my age!). Back then every school year we were guaranteed atleast 2 unscheduled holidays or at the very minimum half days due to heavy rains. These were pre cell phone, pre internet, heck, even pre-computer days and in fact, getting a phone connection used to be something that you had to wait a minimum of a couple of years. So we would be all dressed up and wait for the school bus which would not come. Then some parent would decide to walk/drive down to the school (the school was around a 15 minute walk from our home) and then they would come back and say the magic words – ‘no school’. We kids would love our unscheduled holiday and since it would be raining, we’d get to eat hot pakodas and as a bonus play in the rains….

Unfortunately this stopped when I reached college, since lectures used to take place even if there was one student. But during college and the time I worked, I’ve had many adventures in walking through waist-high water just to get home, being stranded in buses and trains, and seeing the good side of people in such situations.

Many people, especially those who come in from out of the city complain about the coldness of the people in Mumbai. About how neighbours don’t open the doors to neighbours and how they don’t even know who their neighbours are. But times like this, seem to bring out the best in the same people accused of being cold!

Here are some pictures of the rains in Mumbai – please note that these are more recent pictures, magnify these pictures by 10 or more and that was what I experienced, magnify it by 50 and that’s what my parents experienced, magnify it by 100 and that is what my grandparents said they experienced!

Trains stalled as the tracks are completely waterlogged. People have to just jump down is your train is not at/near a station and hope you don’t have a long walk home…

This is something that I have experienced myself…walking in waist-deep water and hoping and praying that some drain is not open near me!

The iconic BEST bus moving through a flooded street somewhere near the Hindmata, Parel area, if my geography of Mumbai still holds up.

We used to play like this at this one place near our home which always gets flooded!

From here to…..???

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I really don’t know what to type today. My mind is in a blank – actually that’s not true – I have thoughts running all over the place, incoherently that anything I put down will only be seen as ramblings.

Getting up in the mornings everyday is becoming more and more of a chore. Getting ready to go to work another headache. I wish I had the financial ability to just quit my job and be a Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) atleast for a while till I am able to get my head in order. At my age, now I really don’t know what I want to do. I do know that I want to do something that interests me, something that gets me going the whole day. At the point I am in now, in fact for the past 4-5 months, I have no interest in anything, things that I used to enjoy doing like reading, cooking etc have taken a back seat now and I feel tired all the time and all I want to do is to SLEEP! What is happening to me?

Me post lunch

This morning, while being squeezed and crushed in the bus during my morning commute, I had this revelation. Now I am not sure if this even means anything, but here goes nothing. Since I love books so much, why not qualify to become a librarian? I just Googled for the information and realised that there is a Library Association of Singapore. So now let me read up  all that they have to offer and write to them about what I need to become a librarian….