Dimpi's Blog

Name:
Location: New York, New York, United States

My move to New York has become something of a challenge and a tremendous source of entertainment for friends and co-workers. So I've started this blog. Hope to amuse and educate you.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Settled in... almost.

So we feel like we've finally settled into being perfect New Yorkers. We don't miss our car. We don't cook much. We don't wear white sneakers. And we read everywhere.... or try to, more on that later.

We've become really busy. I'm preparing for my trip to England and Animesh is preparing to schmooze up to the corporate recruiters. When we see each other, we have lots to talk about. My office life has actually become pretty interesting. I have a new member in my group, Karim, who joined last week as a contractor. Getting him set up took all week and we had all kinds of adventures. The main issue was that he did not have an employee badge and needed an escort to sign him in and 'escort' him around. So that meant I had to come into work ever single day, bright and early at 8am! But its great to have someone to talk to at work, and share coffee break with. Apart from that, there is a whole lot of feature code to be written, work to be divided up and project managers to be kept happy. So I'm busy, which is always good.

Animesh is having a similarly hectic and fun time. His corporate presentations are on. So he wears a suit to school every day and comes home stuffed on hors doevres. He's supposed to mingle with the corporate recruiters and make a good enough impression to get on an interview 'closed list'. I'm still learning what all these terms mean, but I'm beginning to hear them a lot. Getting on the 'closed list' is the only way to interview for a job with a bank. To get on this list, you must attend the 'coporate presentations' whereafter you 'network' over drinks and hors doevres. Make a good enough impression and they call you back for an 'informational interview', which is not an interview at all. They just tell you a lot about their job and chat with you. If they like you, they call you back for more of the same. Talking, wine, cheese on crackers, talking, mini crab cakes, beer, more talk, chicken satays, cocktails... on and on till you land a summer job. Animesh whines about it all the time, which tells me that he really loves it. He comes home late everyday and stands in front of the mirror and tells me all about it. Theres a large mirror in our living room and it covers an entire wall. Animesh has developed a real need to check his appearance when he's having a conversaton with me. When he walks by, he sometimes stops and makes faces at himself. I once caught him dancing in front of the mirror and it totally cracked me up. I probably shouldn't have written that. Lifes not fair for a guy who's wife keeps a public blog!

So anyway, Animesh, the busy guy in a suit, has learned to read his wall street journal while standing in a moving train. When he comes home, he has all kinds of interesting tit-bits to share. Like the 4 page advertisement for Tamil Nadu in the journal, featuring a two page interview of chief minister Jayalalitha . I was so shocked I read the entire advertisement. I though the big picture of Jayalalitha smiling benignly in her poncho was very disturbing. Meanwhile, I've been trying hard to read my books on the bus but I just can't keep awake. Sleeping on the way to work is a real problem because I could easily miss my stop. But I do sleep, and in my sleep I have very realistic dreams of missing my stop and never making it to work. My fear of not making it to work is quite real because I always seem to be running late for the bus. I've already missed the morning bus a few times by a few seconds. Everday I put on a pair of sneakers instead of pumps (I have two pairs of pumps permanently in my office now... just for this reason) and sprint all the way to the subway stop and then up to the bus terminal in port authority. So when I miss the bus and have to wait an hour for the next one I get really mad at the stupid subway train that never comes on time and at the stupid dogs that there are too many of in New York city. This is definitely something I need to write about in my blog. No one in midtown new york has a big porch, much less a nice big yard. So why does everyone seem to have a dog? Or two and three dogs? And these aren't even the Paris-Hilton style lapdogs (although there are plenty of those too), they are large pedigreed dogs that look very fierce. I don't like dogs. I'm actually quite scared of dogs. And when theres 3 or 4 labrador types lining my side of the street, its fear of dogs competing with fear of missing the bus. Last time I missed the bus, I went down to the cafe and ordered breakfast. 'Regular' toasted bagel (as opposed to low carb/ low fat), extra regular cream cheese and a drink made up of of carrot, cucumber and celery. The drink was called 'skin rejuvinator', which I thought was very promising. I also bought myself a new book to read on the bus: The collected stories of Gabirel Garcia Marques. I have read about half a page of that so far. When I get further, I'll write up a blog book review.

One of the interesting experiences I had because of our crazy schedules was eating out alone. Animesh was busy as usual, and I'd had a very rough day to begin with, which ended with a 2+ hour commute back to the city. I didn't want to go home, order carry out and mope. And I didn't have the energy to cook. So I walked into Bricco, an Italian restaurant on our street. The place is definitely stylish and everyone is well dressed. There are always a lot of people there and when I arrived they didn't have a single table available. So heres the best part of dining solo, they fit you into an empty bar stool and let you order dinner. I got a drink and ordered my entree. People were definitely looking my way. Eating alone -check, female eating alone -check, Indian female eating alone in a nice restaurant -check. I had all the oddities. I realized I'm not so self assured as to breeze through the experience unassisted. I took out my 'reading material', last month's National Geographic featuring Global Warming, and read it cover to cover. But I'm proud to say, I even ordered a Tiramisu and ate most of it while making small talk with the bartender about how good Tiramisu is. Next time I eat alone, I'll go to Hard Rock Cafe, and no reading!

Since this blog should have been written three weeks ago, theres a lot of stuff to talk about, but I've forgotten the details. Once Animesh and I had the apartment in decent shape, we decided to call some friends over. Tamatar and co came first. All guys. I don't know if they appreciated the full extent of our labors but they liked the food and watched the game. They later invited us to a concert with them, which we enjoyed. I also got talking with a guy, Manav, who was going skydiving the next day (a saturday). Animesh was going for a school golf outing, so I joined Manav and and another guy, and went skydiving. One jump, 10 mins total time, $300. I won't be doing it again till I am very very rich. But it was a great one time experience. Falling off a plane is very scary. Puts fear of dogs in perspective. Next I called Chitra over for dinner. I gave her a grand tour of our apartment and she complimented me in all the right places. Thats what I wanted to hear. I was very pleased. We also grilled tuna on the george foreman and I finally learned to make fish medium rare. I went out with Ranjita for dinner one night and we talked about SN94. I'm thinking of introducing her to Kavitha and Ankur, but everyones been too busy to meet up since. Tamatar organized a weekend camping trip on Hunter mountain. The best part was getting meeting some cool women I expect to hang out with in the future. We also saw some beautiful fall colors up on the mountain. Thats the great thing about the East Coast. Mountains and fall colors less than two hours from NYC. Then I started my art class. I've attended two sessions so far. We had a male model (not a nude though) and I was trying to do him in oil. I started with trying to get in a quick sketch, but the instructor came over and asked me to just lay down some paint! I actually made a whole portrait of the guy without ever using a pencil or charcoal. Its not my best portrait, not even close, but I think I learned a lot. I also have to unlearn some things... because the instructor has a very traditional style and a strong opinion :-)

Anyway, I've been happily busy so far, but I'm going to write my blogs more often. There are lots of new restaurants and stores we've discovered that I want to write about before I forget. Heres a short list of what I remember: Parc Verdome Wine?, excellent collection on 57th, Cafe Saigon Vietnamese on 50th and 9th... they have pho, just like the place in Winfield, IL, Tangra Masala in queens for Indian Chinese, Chanpen on 55th and 9th for thai. Oyama on 57th is pretty good for Sushi, but Animesh like Yama in the village a lot better. The one place that was truly BAD was Kennedy's Irish Pub on 57th. Lesson learned: Just because a place is crowded doesn't mean its any good.

Thats all for now, more next week. Enjoy Halloween!