My Great Day
Today was a day when I would have loved to have called my mother. Who else wants to hear me show off about the great day I had as much as she? Pat is a captive audience, and well, I'm lucky to be able to expect her zeal in my behalf.
I almost did call my mom, but I have to parcel my miniscule free time; if I called my mother, I'd have had no awakeness left for blogging.
Along with my director, and wearing simply my bright green, linen dress-shirt, with its white collar and three-quarter-length, white-capped sleeves, and my olive, pin-striped pants, I met Mr. Shanker Annaswamy, the leader of IBM India, today.
Had I known the meeting would happen, I'd have worn my salwar kameez, or my best business suit. It was better this way. Hardly had enough time to get nervous.
"I'm honored to meet you," I said.
"Me, too," he responded disarmingly.
It was 30 minutes with one of the world's top business leaders. I can't write about our conversation, which was IBM Confidential, but I walked away, wanting more than ever to be of service to my colleagues here.
I'm so energized, even as I'm exhausted in parallel. This is my state nearly all of the time. Finally, I'm sleeping hard. The jet-lag ended during the middle of last week.
CNN or MTV or NPR
Today, for the third time since we've been here, I felt well enough to exercise formally -- still can't yet go back to swimming; my cold is lingering, though I keep wanting to feel that it's nearly gone. I saw a doctor over the weekend -- did I write about that? -- and it really is just a cold, and he gave me Cipro and Vomistop for the rest.
The hotel's health club was becoming crowded by the time I got there, at 6:05 am -- had been empty, other than one guy the day prior. How disappointing to have to watch programming chosen by a hotel guest other than me! He wanted CNN, which felt so grim compared to my thrill at MTV yesterday morning...whether or not the other exerciser had been delighted by my taste.
I'm thinking of my colleague Mike, who's on assignment in Shanghai now, and how, probably locally, current events aren't magnified by the media in the same way they are by media outside of the country, just like when I lived in Jerusalem in 1985-86, I never felt the degree of danger that the non-Israeli media always promoted about life in Israel.
At breakfast yesterday, Pat said, "Sarah, a sleeper-cell could be anywhere --"
"So why suspend living, right?"
"Right."
When I left for the office today, Pat was sitting at her laptop, listening to yesterday's "Morning Edition" on NPR, and kept listening, she told me later, until it stopped connecting.
Pat is telling me to go to sleep, so I'll just finish this with the pop part; so far, during my daily commute over the past several days, I've been delighted to hear the following songs on Radio Indigo, the colour of music:
- "Party Like a Rockstar" - Shop Boyz
- "I Don't Need a Man" - Pussy Cat Dolls
- "How Deep is Your Love?" - BeeGees
- "Summer Love" - Justin Timberlake
- "Show Me Love" - Robin S.
- "Do You Know?" - Enrique - I hear this one the most often....
My boss here wants us to move into the community where he lives, and if the rental goes through, he's excited that we'll be able to ride to work together. I know he's right --that we'll get even more accomplished -- but already, I'm mourning not hearing Cindu's "Big Breakfast" voice and Rohit's "Cruise Control" voice during drive-times.
