Tag Archives: Life

2017 Week 5 Update

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Where did January go? Can’t believe that it’s already week 6 of 2017….

Nothing much happened this week which was a short week because of the Chinese New Year long weekend. S went back to work on Tuesday while the children stayed at home one more day. 

I ended January with completing something I actually randomly decided to do on New Years Day. I had decided to finish up the loads of masks I had and never used and so decided to do a 21 day challenge of masking daily. Then I upped it by adding a spot of mediation while I masked. Some days I was so tempted to just go to bed, but I determined on and ended the month doing it every single day. I am so proud of myself. I then decided to do something for myself every month as mini 21 day challenges. 

In February, I’m going to do some things exercise every day, even if it is for 15 minutes daily. I want this to be lifetime changes and not something I will do for a month. I am still masking, though every other day now and meditating daily. 

This was pretty much my week this week! Leaving you all with a gorgeous sunset I saw yesterday. 



Have a great week folks!

2017 Week 4 Update

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Nothing exciting happened this week! There, I live a very boring and mundane life and this weekly post does showcase this!

This has been a long weekend, because of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. Living in a multiracial and multicultural society like Singapore, you do get tend to be caught in the celebrations of the festivities of the other races.

Speaking of multiracial and multicultural societies, I am appalled by what is happening in the United States these days! The latest edict by their President which has banned not only immigrants from six largely Muslim countries including legal green card holders is plain ridiculous. Most of the immigrants from these countries are fleeing persecution and hope to arrive in the ‘land of the free’ but that’s not going to happen now. Instead, countries which have exported terror (I won’t name them here, but any simple google search will tell you which ones these are) are not included in this edict, including the countries whose citizens were responsible for some of the most heinous attacks in and on American soil and people. Guess his business trumps human decency!

GG & BB’s dream universities are in America, but if things do not improve, I don’t think I will be comfortable sending them to that country to study as minorities keep getting targeted. University is still almost a decade away for BB, so we still have hope!

I also have loads of family there, some who have been there for decades and are naturalised now and some who’ve been there for a few years now. All of them are highly educated professionals and earn quite well. Browns and minorities even walking the street now begets paranoia and I am quite honestly, worried for them.

Hopefully, the people realise that we’re all human beings and citizens of the world. In this day and time, when distances are not really that important, it’s not wise keeping your borders closed, that too because you are paranoid….

Needed to get this out of my chest, so thanks for reading if you’ve managed to get so far! Hopefully things will get better soon.

January is almost over,  so let’s hope February brings with it better tidings. Have a wonderful week folks!

2017 Week 3 Update

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A fairly boring week this was for me. Nothing much happened in my life.

I had a couple of interesting dreams this week, with a common theme of shoes in both. I wonder what that means. I searched online but could not really find what was the meaning of the dreams. All I hope is that it is positive.

I haven’t heard back from both the places I interviewed last week. I am going to borrow some words from Elsa and just “let it go”….If it’s meant to be, it will be….

Somehow this was all I did this week. Of course, I also worked on both my blogs, but nothing else…

Have good week folks! Hopefully, this week is better than the previous week….

2017 Week 2 Update

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This week also flew by quite fast. I was quite busy preparing for my two interviews in the week that I hardly had time for much.

Speaking of the interviews, both interviews were the shortest I’ve had to date. The first one should take pole position as the absolute shortest interview, it only took 5 minutes of a couple of questions before they started asking me if I had questions. With my questions, I managed to increase the time spent to slightly over 10 minutes. I know I will not get a callback here, as usually if you know you are not going to proceed further with a candidate, you don’t really spend time with them. But they’ve said they will let me know in a week or two if I make it to the next round. Another reason why I know I may not get a callback is they need someone urgently with a very specific skillset and experience as they need to hit their KPI by the middle of the year and I don’t have that experience. I don’t understand why they invited me to interview, though!

The other interview, in the same general vicinity of the first one also lasted just slightly over 15 minutes. This was probably the most unfriendly panel I have met – they didn’t bother to introduce themselves and I assumed the main interviewer would be the potential boss and one other person the HR. No idea who the others were. This went better than day 1, but the biggest negative about this position is that it’s based on a project which is initially expected to run for two years, which makes this position only a short-term one. Anyway, they too should let me know either way by next week. In the meantime, I need to still apply and no reply….

S’ cousin and his family are in Singapore this week for a family holiday. They are staying with S’ mum and so we invited them for dinner yesterday. Since I knew we had to go out for GG’s award ceremony after lunch, I did as much of the prep work as possible in the morning and even made a couple of dishes before hand. So all that was left for me to do after the ceremony was to make sure the house was nice and sweet smelling and some last minute cooking. R came home early from her off day to help me make rotis. It was an enjoyable evening spent talking and chit-chatting.

This was my week, hope this week is better than the last and may your week be awesome!

 

Festivals of India: Thiruvathirai

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Chidambaram Temple..Source

A festival unique to the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Thiruvathirai or Arudhra Darisanam is a Hindu festival celebrated on the full moon night in the Tamil month of Margazhi (approximately in December–January), which is also the longest night in the year. The Thiruvathirai vrata is one of the eight significant vratas dedicated to Lord Shiva as it is considered to be the nakshaththram of Lord Nataraj and is the longest night of the year. The word

 

Thiruvathirai or Arudhra in Tamil means “sacred big wave”, that was used when this universe was created by Lord Shiva about 132 trillion years ago. The famous Chidambaram temple in Tamil Nadu, celebrates this temple with great pomp and splendour and has been celebrating for more than 1500 years, as evident from literary and historical evidence in the form of stone inscriptions.

 

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Main Statue of Lord Natraj at Chidambaram Temple…Source 

The festival celebrates Lord Shiva’s cosmic dance of Natraj. The cosmic dance of Lord Shiva represents five activities – Creation, Protection, Destruction, Embodiment and Release. In essence, it represents the continuous cycle of creation and destruction. This cosmic dance takes place in every particle and is the source of all energy. Arudra Darshan celebrates this ecstatic dance of Lord Shiva. Arudhra or Thiruvathirai signifies the golden red flame and Shiva performs the dance in the form this red-flamed light. Lord Shiva is supposed to be incarnated in the form of Lord Nataraja during the Arudra Darshan day.

 

Lord Shiva never took birth and therefore there is no nakshaththram dedicated to celebrate his birthday. It was mentioned in the Hindu mythology that once Lord Vishnu was resting on the great serpent and Adhi seesha felt that He was in some deep thinking. On asking Lord Vishnu told Adhi seesha that he was remembering the dance of Lord Shiva. This answer invoked the desire in Adhi seesha to witness this great dance. He asked Lord Vishnu how this desire could be fulfilled. Lord Vishnu then urged him to do rigorous ‘tapasya’ at Chidambaram’. Adhi seesha followed his advice and devotedly prayed to Lord Shiva for a very long time. At the same there, a muni and devotee of Lord Shiva known as Viyaagra Paadha also lived in that same place. He worshipped to Lord Shiva to obtain the legs of a tiger in order to pluck flowers at the dawn, without being touched by the bees for offering to the God. He also observed ‘tapas’ to see His great ‘Nataraj’ dance. Finally, Lord Shiva was pleased with their prayers and devotion and he showed his ‘Nataraj’ dance in Chidambaram on the day of Thiruvaadhirai. From then onwards the ‘Nataraaja’ image of Shiva is worshipped here with great fervour on this day.

 

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Temple processions during Thiruvathurai….Source

Tamil hymns of Maanikavasagar’s Thiruvasagam (particularly the hymns Thiruvempavai and Thiruppalliezhuchi) are chanted in temples instead of Sanskrit mantras. On the very day of Thiruvathirai, the idols of Nataraja (Lord Shiva) and his consort Shivagami (Parvati) are taken out of the temple premises for a grand procession. It is one of the major events in almost all the Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu.

 

In Tamil homes, during Tiruvathirai, a special dish called Thiruvadhirai Kali is made. The kali is made with rice, jaggery, moong dal, coconut, cardamom and ghee. The kali is usually eaten with a special curry called Thiruvathirai ezhlu curry koottu which is made out of seven vegetables, that is cooked and served on this day. The vegetables used for this kootu include pumpkin, ash gourd, raw bananas, field beans, sweet potatoes, colocasia, potatoes, eggplants etc.