Monthly Archives: March 2010

The Day Before

The day before my engagement ceremony was probably the nicest day I had in a while. Just thinking back on it, I wonder how everything could run so smoothly and then turn into such a jumble. I figure that’s what big ceremonies are all about, especially when you are going into it with a blindfold, 5 blind women leading you and an off-kilter walking stick.

Friday I skipped my only class, it didn’t seem right to wait until 2 p.m. to leave for Seattle, even though I didn’t have any pressing obligations. My to-do list for that day was to make to Seattle with my mother (and Gus) without getting into an argument and pick up Katie (my “younger sister”) at 8 p.m. I also had to pick up a few more things for the engagment like the girl’s gifts and the gift for Gus.

I was really disappointed that Sophia couldn’t make it, there was a little bit of drama about that, because I had asked to take her to Seattle, and then her mom started calling my mom and brother to tell them that Sophia was sick and couldn’t make it.  I don’t know what to think, she was acting a little odd the days before this, she had called my brother to ask about who was driving and in what car, basically concerned mom questions, which is fine, but I already answered those questions for her.  Maybe the idea of Gus driving was scary? I thought she’d be less concerned because we’d be driving a safer, reliable car rather than my junk car with questionable reliability.  I wasn’t in the mood to play back and forth with her, so I just waited until she was ready to talk to me herself, which she did on the Friday morning.  She had asked my mom to tell me about the cancellation, and my mom reliably passed it along (as well as my brother), but they were both complaining about why she was bugging them about it instead of calling me.  That’s my family for you, we get annoyed by stuff like that, even though they pass it along.  So I was really annoyed that I had to listen to both my mom and brother complain about it and then deal with the big disappointment.  I wasn’t raging inside, but I wanted to cry because it would have meant a lot to me to have my niece there and I admit I was a little suspicious about whether Sophia was really sick or not.

It didn’t help that before the ceremony, Sophia called me to wish me good luck, and when I told her that I hoped she felt better, she stopped and drew a blank.  I’m paranoid, I suppose but something didn’t feel right.  In any case, I’m going to invite her family to the wedding, so even if she can’t go, she can have an invitation for herself as a memory.

There was one good thing about Sophia not coming, we didn’t have to wait until 3 p.m. for her to get out of kindergarten, so we took off that morning with my mom and while I drove to Western Washington, Gus started calling venues and keeping my mom occupied.  My mom makes me crazy so spending too much time in a small, enclosed space is hard on my eardrums and my mental health, so having someone to distract her was good.  We got there in record time and dropped my mom off at my brother’s place so she could rest and wait for my brother to get off work.  Gus and I decided to pick up some conveyer-belt sushi at Sushi Land, and checked into the hotel.  The Marriott in Tukwila is nice, but not as nice as some of the other places I’ve stayed at in that area, so if you want something basic, clean and looks up to date, stay there, it’s in walking distance of Southcenter and many food places.

I had a long drive to Kirkland after that, Katie (a girl I’ve known since she was 4) needed to be picked up and we had some shopping to do.  Part of the engagement ceremony is buying gifts for the family, and I still needed to buy a gift for Gus.  Traditionally the girl’s family buys an outfit for each member of the boy’s family and depending on who is invited, you can also buy an outfit for the boy’s relatives as well.  In my case since we were having a quiet engagement ceremony, I had to buy for Gus, his dad, his mom, his sister, my future brother-in-law, and Amrit, his sister’s son.  His mom and sister helped me buy an appropriate Indian women’s suit in Canada a few weeks back for themselves, and so it was up to me to buy the outfits for the guys, which was basically a dress shirt, and dress pants.  Gus helped me by getting the sizes and approving what I picked out for them even though technically I am supposed to buy everything by myself.  But I paid for it out of my wedding savings, so that should count in theory.

I ended up buying some really nice dress slacks and a shirt/tie set that I thought would look good on the guys, and also got a brown dress belt for his father because Gus said that he needed one.  I also picked up the cutest little pseudo dress suit for the nephew, which Gus thought was a great idea, I admit I am a sucker for those outfits, they look so sharp on the little boys. With Katie’s help,  Gus ended up getting an extra-special outfit that I picked out for him at Nordstrom Rack, they had the nicest Calvin Klein white shirt (his favorite brand), a super soft sweater cream sweater vest  and a pair of textured black and brown Kenneth Cole dress pants.

Next on the list was a Fruits Basket marathon!  Katie and I are not hardcore anime people, but I spread my addiction to this anime to her, and since she’s the only one I know that likes this particular show, I usually watch it with her.  Since it was late, we decided to pick our favorite episodes and watch as many as we could.  I passed out at 12 a.m. because I was too tired to watch, even though I really wanted to.  I really missed Katie, I haven’t seen her in about 2 years and she grew really tall!  She was probably almost 13 when I last saw her, and she was only a few inches taller than me, but now she was a towering 5’10″ give or take at 15.  Anyway, it was great to see her and we got to spend some quality time with her.  She had gotten her driver’s permit that very day, and if it hadn’t been so dark (and in Gus’ car), I probably would have had her drive.  It was really great to hear about all the things she’s been up to and her plans for the summer, which were all theater-based.  She loves being involved in the theater and even teaches a class about it to younger kids.  All in all, she’s amazing.

We ended up screwing around after getting all sugared up and taking pictures of each other with my camera.  They turned out terrible, but it was funny anyway.  I taught her my technique for looking like your teeth are knocked out, a la The Hangover (although this technique existed to when I was in middle school, my brother and I created it, along with the brownie cat poops).  Basically you take a sweet made out of chocolate, like cake, a brownie or a Tootsie Roll.  You squish it into a small square and place on your front tooth.  If the sweet is soft enough, it should stick and then just adjust it in the mirror to fit your tooth shape.  Next, refrain from laughing and smile at the first person you meet.  I guarantee they will look so surprised that it will make you die of laughter, if you haven’t already started laughing at your reflection.  Anyway, we took pictures, Katie looks downright scary with her missing two front teeth, and I look haggard in my picture or I’d share it.  Maybe if someone posts a pic then I’ll post mine, how about that?

I remember waking up a few times that night to her watching Fruits Basket and wishing that I had more time to spend with her, but I knew that I’d be in Seattle soon enough, but before she goes to college!  It’s okay though, she was there at an important time for me, and that meant a lot, I don’t have a lot of people that I’ve known for a long period of time since I move a lot.  In any case, the last time I woke up she was snoring a little and hanging over the bed in an odd position, which reminded me of the time I tried to have her watch “Lovely Complex”  with me in my twin bed (at her mom’s house).  That time she ended up falling asleep during the first episode and whacking me in the face while I was trying to enjoy the show.

I was looking forward to the next day, although there were a lot of unanswered questions in my mind.  Would the weather hold?  Would my outfit look the same as I remembered it?  How would I know what to do in the ceremony?  Would everyone show up on time?  Still, I didn’t want to show up to the engagement with big dark circles under my eyes, so I tried to go back to sleep and the next thing I knew, it was morning.

Here it comes collaboration

Shirky discusses the idea of the “Tragedy of the Commons”, and how it applies to collaborative and collective action.  He discusses the difficulties of getting a group of people to work together for the common good.  His example uses the herding idea, where people have to conserve a resource (such as grass) or it will hurt the group.  Then he describes what happens when people realize that they don’t have to conserve a resource, they are tempted to take more for themselves and basically screw over the rest of the group.  It spirals into worse behavior once the rest of the group realizes they can do this.  The moral of the story is that when it comes to things that people won’t do voluntarily, like sharing…there has to be some sort of rules or agreement to keep things on a somewhat even keel (or even like a teeter-totter, take turns).

I wondered if online spaces are similar, technically there aren’t many rules out there to govern behavior.  What is keeping things in check? Do we behave because we are following the restrictions we are governed by in real life?  I think we do up to a point.  According to “The Tragedy of the Commons”, if we take for ourselves, then we are doing better for ourselves rather than for the group.  As Net Geners, we are supposed to care more about families, the environment, the group, as opposed to the idea of being a “Me” generation.   I think that we are on that path, most people I meet at school have a family, or have small children, definitely not the typical college student and I’m really impressed by what they can accomplish on their own.  I’m not sure if I could pull it off as well as they do, but they are doing it because they care about their group, and in turn it will benefit the larger whole.

Another related example is bandwidth…there are people who download huge amounts of data with an astonishing regularity and they are using up tons of resources.  The average person uses a very small share of that bandwidth, but if enough people in your area are heavy users, you might notice some significant slowdown.  It happens at school too, if a lot of people are using the wireless internet, it’s really hard to do anything online.

So the ISPs track our ips and give priority to the low-end users and penalize the high-end users by throttling their bandwidth.  People are divided about whether that is legal or not to do that, after all, it is in our benefit that downloaders don’t take all the resources for themselves.

I’m a huge downloader myself, I will find interesting tutorials, fonts, e-books, pictures, you name it, if it is information, I’d probably download it and store for future use.  I’m quite greedy about how much bandwidth I use, and I don’t particularly worry about taking too much unless it is bothering Gus.  So in my own small way, I do care about my group, but not much beyond that, and the tragedy is that I don’t even know how much is enough.

Cooking Club

I wish there was a cooking/baking club at WSU TC, I would really love trying out new recipes that need to be shared with a larger group.

I would love to make some creme brulee, but only if I could share because I have to keep healthy and not overdo the jum-jums. There’s something very soothing about cooking, and today has been a hot mess.

Time flew by today, and I was having trouble keeping in touch with Gus, who was checking out venues. We got the venue we wanted (allows us to bring in liquor, wine, beer and catered food), although it was a bit earlier than Gus wanted. I am okay with getting married earlier, it means that my to-do list is just that much bigger, but it also means if I want to take a class over the summer, then I’m not juggling all that (and a bag of chips).

So onto the hot mess. When Gus couldn’t get hold of me (because I had my phone on silent – yeah it was my fault Pullman had all the feedback, Gus texted me during class), he went ahead and booked the venue. When I finally was able to talk to him, it was already 5 p.m. and it was in the middle of my photography class. So naturally I was super-excited and posted it on facebook as a status and as an event because I wanted people to know about it (since traditionally we let people know almost a year ahead of time, and by the time the invitations get done, it might only be a month or two in advance). Gus and Cynthia’s Oh So Sikh Wedding and Reception was an amazing title in my opinion (and I found out later that Gus agreed).

Anyway, one of his younger relatives saw it, started inviting people to the event and basically started an uproar. Why? Because traditionally the parent’s family get to send out invitations to the relatives and evidentally everyone from India to Canada to Washington found out about the date and called Gus and his family to see it was true. Yeah, that sucked. So you can imagine that I was probably in some trouble for posting right? I thought I was, but I found out that Gus took the fall for me, telling the angry parties that he told his cousin. This is why I’m marrying this guy, he really protected me on this one, because he didn’t want me to look bad. There’s no point in sharing that we have the right to share with our friends and family about this, but because someone broke the rules, it messed up Gus’ day and made me absolutely miserable for being the one who started the whole mess (unintentionally of course).

I still don’t understand why his cousin thought it was okay to invite whomever she wanted to our wedding. I’m not close with this person, so I don’t even know why she thought it was okay. She seems to think that because I posted it, it was okay to invite people, which makes no sense to me. Ah the power of facebook, wrecking havoc in my life once more. So basically she can’t keep her hands off of someone else’s ceremony, and keeping quiet is too much to ask. Ah, I’m so bitter with her right now.

So now for the repercussions. We might have to change the date so that the traditional types will feel like they are being treated respectfully and in the traditional way (by invitation). In my mind, I say screw it, it’s a lost cause to make it better, just stick with it and let’s get everything else done, there’s too much to do and not enough time to squeeze it all in.

We did decide on one thing though, we are going to ask his parents on everything now because I’m tired of not knowing what is right or wrong. I don’t like boundaries as a rule, but if it means a little more stability and peace at home, then I’m all for it. I had to give one of my oh-so-awesome backrubs to make up for my unintentional gaffe.

He says it wasn’t my fault, but if I hadn’t posted it to Facebook it wouldn’t have happened. I can’t reconcile it.

Convergence exercise

List first three things that come to your head.

hungry

oily

french fry

Describe each word with three adjectives/nouns.

stomach, spoon, coke zero

olive, peanut rich

crispy salty wendy’s

Choose one from each of the three sections and then come up with something that reminds you of that.

spoon rich crispy – creme brulee

The Weeks Before the Day Before – Part 1

One thing that is very different from a typical wedding (Mexican, Christian, Catholic) is the engagement process. We all know about how the asker is supposed to go through a process, maybe doing something special like go to a nice restaurant, maybe go on a special trip or get down on one knee and ask. For me, that was an act that bothered me to no end, I couldn’t imagine Gus getting down on one knee, and the idea of it kind of made me feel ill. I admit I am a very sentimental person when it comes to certain things, but I knew I’d be uncomfortable if I was put on the spot like that. So when I found out that there was a special ceremony for getting engaged in the Punjabi/Sikh tradition, I thought that it would be a really great way for me to learn more about the Punjabi culture and experience a traditional Sikh engagement ceremony.

There’s a lot to prepare for an engagement ceremony because its the first time that people outside of the inner circle (the parents and the pair to be engaged) will meet the boy’s and girl’s families. In our case, we already did the ritualistic meetings, where his parents came to Kennewick to visit my family (my mother, my brother who lives in Seattle, and my niece, my brother’s daughter). As the hosts, we provided freshly prepared chai, hot samosas from India Palace, and sweets like julab (fried ricotta balls). We discussed potential issues about the marriage, and engagement dates. It was a chance for his family to get to know my family, and figure out some of the logistics of having a traditional Indian wedding with only half the family being Indian.

The second meeting was at his family’s home, and we got to meet his sister and her husband, as well as his parents again. We were fed a similar menu of Indian snacks and sweets, as well as his mom’s amazing cooking. Things didn’t go quite as well, there were some issues that I’ll bring up another time, but it didn’t end well, and I was really worried that we might not be able to get engaged. The language barrier was an issue as well, although both families speak English well, they are used to speaking Punjabi at home, so it was hard to know what was going on at times.

We went home tired, very upset and a little worried. After a few weeks, we found out that the engagement was still on, and that they were ready for us to get engaged. The trouble was that we had to keep it secret for a while, because they didn’t want any drama from people who didn’t understand what was going on with Gus and I. From what I can tell, they were concerned people might not take our engagement seriously and try to change his mind, which would be troublesome (and a bit annoying – I’ve been with him for almost 12 years now, I think he likes me, k?).

More on this later.