Making the difference...

I am not a fan of Go - No Go decisions. Traffic lights, eating out, new movie, quitting jobs, bad habits, buying a car, selling a car. Why is it so difficult when the only two outcomes are so far apart? Should it just not be easier to make up my mind? But these situations, just like my annoying mid term close-ended papers at Uni, are the worst of the lot. They are really the end of the decision tree and you have to go through the entire process of ifs and buts and smaller yesses and nos before you reach the divine clarity you need. I find it annoying. It wastes my time and is sub-optimum if one is to follow the universal optimism that there is no such thing as a wrong answer. It is therefore, not the 'GNG' decision, but the fact that I am swamped with many and tiny GNG decisions that could change my life. My last big GNG decision, albeit a quick one, was whether I should purchase an enormously large box of Bounty chocolates at Dubai Duty Free on my way back to Copenhagen. The limiting factor was, hold your breath, that I risked losing them to liquid restrictions in hand luggage at the next airport I landed. But for my own entertainment, I really wanted to be held up by customs for what they presumed were 6 dozen venemous liquid filled capsules of mass destruction so that I would have something to write about on my blog. Unfortunately, despite my planned sabotage, I breezed through transit and managed to land in at my destination with no Interpol on my back. It was almost disappointing. You would think that as long as you did not stuff coke up your butt or smell of gunpowder, air travel would be just another means of getting from point A to B. However, the post 09/11 slash busted London bombers myth that holding up millions of passengers at airports around the world will deter terrorism has reached unacceptable levels of paranoia. And I would be fine with random checks as would Shah Rukh Khan, but it makes me hysterical to see how profiled this random selection is. To be honest, it does not offend me one bit and I actually find it quite amusing - Young, brown, Muslim, Indian woman living in the Middle East... I am the perfect bait, until I open my mouth. And so, my joy ride reached a fun ending as I was about to exit the restricted area of the airport. I suddenly noticed I was walking right past a sniffer dog. They scare the living daylights out of me. Thus, I jumped. How abnormal I know. That and I was whisked away by an important looking guy into a very cold interrogation room. He asked me if I was importing any cheese, alcohol or meat from Dubai. I said I was not a fan of a, I did not do b and I could not possibly manage c given the estimated time I would spent at each airport at origin, transit and destination. He was not amused, but he was not meant to be. I brought my chocolates home in the 72 pieces I bought them in. And I am going to push it up one notch and go for caramel filling next time. What could possibly go wrong.

Around the bend... with no excuses.

In 2008, I made one blog entry... after 10 months. I should be thankful to google for even keeping this account active. I am. On the bright side, my life did not really shape up like my blog over the last 12 months. This has been the year of the Ds for me... Deceptions, Deluges, Dramas, Dilemmas and worse of them all... Decisions. I think I scraped through with plenty of bruises to remind me of a painful yet immensely enlightening experience that will be etched in my mind forever. Deceptions. Have you ever discovered a talent in yourself that you never knew existed before? It is such a revelation. I actually suffered from a lot of deceptive conclusions about myself. Most of these myths were broken:

• I can cook. Many edible things that can even survive a few days in the refrigerator. And I never thought I could do that!
• I can go without a migraine attack for weeks and therefore, I have discovered the one single trigger for my migraine attacks that has hounded me for the last two decades. And I thought I never would.
• I can survive without what I would rate as food, water and proper hygiene in the Danish wilderness, and therefore anywhere. And I never thought...
• I can be dropped in the middle of nowhere, and still find my way back home. I can read a map with my eyes closed. I never knew...

Never say never because it only and always depends on how badly you want it.

Deluges. I was flooded with studies and work and studies all at the same time. That was my life for months on end. But the day I decided to move on to the next big challenge and wrapped up work in Dubai, things came to a standstill. And I felt dead. I was not enjoying the deluge. But I was not enjoying the draught! It was really a question of what I made of the situation.

Dramas... I was full of them. I guess I had the maximum number of fights and cat fights in 2008. I fought with drivers for parkings in malls, I fought with people who would jump the queue in the Embassy, I fought with people who fought with me (the never ending ones), I even remember fighting with inanimate objects - ironing boards that would not snap close, the 5610 i cover that never came off the back of the phone... And then when I wasn't fighting, I was lecturing. Everybody. Everything. This was a year when I went through some very challenging and critical times. I guess I failed to realise that not everybody else was interested in finding out what and why. I was basically present, prominent is the word, trying to get something out of my system I guess. And it just never happened. I fumed like a volcano ready to erupt, sending people scrambling for cover. And in my less aggressive moods, I turned on my loved ones with a story about the head or the back (they would know) or some part of me that is broken forever... telling them I was not going to live long enough and I better get treated right. The usual puppy-face act that guaranteed sympathy from people who cared...

And eventually the dilemmas and decisions that followed turned my life upside down. There was particularly one of course after which these simple daily things that were such a normal part of my life changed completely. When I graduated from the MISE programme, I was faced with many question marks. One question, always led to another. Am I moving to another country or staying back? Am I getting richer or poorer? Am I pushing my career path backward or pulling it forward? There was never an easy way out. Every decision I made changed one part of my life.

The sum of the bargain has been my move to Copenhagen, leaving all that I love behind. Ho hum... I describe a year full of misery and near fatal depression to tell you that I have left all that I love behind and I am coming out happier? Yes.

Well, sometimes our computers hang and we can kick them, smack them, tear them down until we give up and shove the Restart button in for a reboot. But then there are some times, when we know we've got it all stored in there and we just need to sort it a bit... so we back up all our precious files, clean the system up and start all over again before we reload our files... we reformat. I am not quite certain if one would call my situation getting thrown over the cliff or taking the dive, but I like to think I am reformatting my life. And that is not as easy as a computer. Because once you have rebooted, you really do start all over again. Although I will return to Dubai after two years, I know I have pushed the restart button... and only for myself! So what happens when I reboot, I have no idea!

I've seen mum over the weekends, I can easily pull off the house-keeping part. I am managing the Ds quite well actually. I scared myself a couple of times because only I am to blame for the missing pair of pants or the unwashed plate after dinner. From a year full of screaming and shouting and fighting for my rights, I have mellowed into a, hold your breath, reflecting, soul-searching peace-maker who sings to the birds and strides to work through sub-zero temperatures. Life these days is all about making the most of what I have and praying for the dollar to crash... Until I reboot, a lot will change. But at least I can expect it, and plan for it... or against it. Living alone is a powerful experience. It is the reformatting everybody needs at some point in their lives... not too often. And never too long... But certainly a one-timer. For better or for worse!