It’s all about making connections June 25, 2008

Last night, my colleagues and I hired a driver named Mohammed to take us to do a bit of shopping and out to Angeethi, a restaurant specializing in tasty Punjabi food in Banjara Hills, which is on the other side of Hyderabad from where we are staying.  Mohammed has been a driver for the firm for at least the past five years, so he has gotten to know numerous ex-pats and people like myself who are in India on short-term visits. 

On our way home from dinner, he quickly drove past the cab office in order to pick up something he wanted to show us. It was a business card album and it was chock-full of cards he’s received from all the people he’s driven.  Mohammed also showed us photos he’s had taken of himself with some of these people too.  He was really proud of his album and the connections he’s made.  He had gotten to know some of these people quite well over the course of driving them back and forth to the office each day.  (My favorite anecdote was his description of the female partner who sometimes would “self-drive” to work.  It’s somewhat incomprehensible to the male drivers that women would actually want to drive themselves anywhere.)

We were tickled by this, of course, but it made me realize that the ways in which we connect to each other and establish relationships is less important than the fact that it happens and how we benefit somehow from these connections.  He got to know three more employees of a company he is proud to serve, and we received excellent service from a driver whom we will recommend to others (and call upon again for ourselves on subsequent visits.)  We’re shaking hands and sharing something that creates an impression, whether it’s with a business card or via a Tweet.  I regret that I didn’t have any business cards with me to give him, but at least I’m in the photo. 

Jai Ma and not Ma Bell, or, learning to Skype from India June 22, 2008

Namaste from India! I’m a little bit behind on my blog posts but I have been keeping my tweets relatively up to date. 

You can say “efficient” and “airport” in the same sentence

I arrived in Hyderabad around 11p.m. Friday night.  This is my fifth trip here (which frankly, amazes me.)  For years, I’ve been flying into the rickety and dingy Rajiv Ghandi International Airport, which has recently been replaced with the bright, shiny, brand-new Rajiv Ghandi International Airport nowhere near the former one.  Transfers and transactions of any type usually take an indeterminate period of time in India, but I got through customs within five minutes, all the while marveling at the clean expanses of white walls, white and grey-flecked marble and recessed lighting.  When I got to the baggage carousel, the luggage was already spilling onto the conveyor belt.  That is a benchmark Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport can only dream of replicating. 

It wasn’t anything like what I experienced when I happened to arrive at the same time as several planeloads of pilgrims returning from the Hajj.  That was both a circus and cultural serendipity: the hordes of weary Muslims, jumbled cargo piling up everywhere (often boxes or burlap sacks secured with twine and duct tape) and the maw of family waiting outside to welcome them with flower garlands and gifts. 

This time, the airport was all so clean, orderly and quiet, I was actually kind of let down. 

Indulgences and diversions

First thing on Saturday morning, after enjoying a tasty masala omelette (onions, tomatoes and hot chillies – not for the faint of heart) I headed straight for the hotel spa and had some foot reflexology done.  Our bodies are not meant to travel through space and across multiple time zones at 500 mph.  I have learned that it is a necessity to do things that are beneficial to helping your body get settled once back on the ground.  Lots of water, lots of daylight and lots of bodywork.  (Chilies are optional.)

In the afternoon, I visited Golconda Fort with my co-workers.  Golconda Fort is amazing, just breathtaking in its size and overall preservation.  It also has terrific views of Hyderabad.  The men who were vying to be our paid guides were indignant that I didn’t want to hire them.  “Well, madam, how are you going to know where to go?”  They were disappointed and somewhat suspicious when I said I’d been there before.

Check out my photostream on Flickr on this page – I’ve posted a bunch of photos from the fort, including a spectacular and rather fearsome-looking shot of the goddess Kali Ma (Mother Kali) painted on a large boulder at a shrine located near the top.  Those things that are often terrifying in one way can also be seen as liberating in another.

For me, the best part about these excursions are the Indian families who ask you to be in their family pictures.  They walk up, shyly, holding their camera and before you know it, you’re posing with a bunch of people you’ll never see again – but you’re in their family album for life.  I have to wonder at this point how many families in Hyderabad and Delhi have my grinning face in their collection of “snaps.”  It’s like being a very, very, very minor celebrity. 

Ma Bell is not the ill communication…but Skype is

Somehow the international calling feature on my cell phone was never activated, and I’ve had difficulty getting hold of AT&T to get it switched on.  Making a landline call in India is like putting a wastepaper basket in the middle of a dark room, standing in one corner of that dark room with your dominant hand tied behind our back and trying to toss a small rubber ball into said basket.  That’s why everyone here has cell phones. 

Apparently, AT&T customer service doesn’t answer emails either.  (I know, I know.  They’re a phone company.)  But that’s OK.  In another year or so, they’ll be known as something else with the same lousy customer service and life will go on.  You can change your name, but that doesn’t mean you can just change what you are.  I say this with the authority of someone who is on their fourth last name. 

Anyway, thanks to my co-worker, I have discovered Skype.  I used earlier this evening and was really pleased at the quality.  I don’t have a webcam on my computer, so they couldn’t see me (jet lagged and haggard) but I got to see my daughter toddling around, laughing, babbling, getting into things, squirming on Daddy’s lap and blowing kisses to me.  I also got to see my dog’s tail and ears bobbing as she skittered through the room (happy birthday, Jazz!)  My husband and I have sent some emails back and forth for the past day, but it was so unsatisfying.  He’s not chatty on email like I am.  Skype gave me the next best thing to actually being at home – and we talked for an HOUR for free! 

 

 

Today’s roundup, including Flickr feedback June 19, 2008

I deployed a new intranet portal this morning.  This was my first time taking a portal from concept to production and although I’m happy that it went successfully, deployments always leave me feeling somewhat anticlimatic once the site goes live.  No time to rest on my laurels – there’s at least one more percolating as I type this and more to come over the next few months. 

I went to the travel clinic today to update my immunizations and get prescriptions for Malarone and Cipro before I head off to India tomorrow evening.  I had to get a typhoid and second dose of hepatitis B vaccines this time.  Because I do energy healing (Reiki), I feel the effects of these vaccines on my body very quickly.  Within a couple of minutes of the injection, I could feel my body begin to respond to the vaccines. I wouldn’t call it a reaction the way physicians have defined it, but I must have looked really “off” because the nurse asked me if I was OK. 

After months of resisting, I started a Flickr account.  You can see images from my Photostream further down the page.  Frankly, I don’t get what’s so great about Flickr.  Its interface is not intuitive at all and it takes a while to set up sets and organize photos. 

I much prefer Photobucket, particularly since I can quickly share individual photos, videos or albums by copying and pasting the URLs, which are formatted for several different applications: email/IM, direct link, HTML code and IMG code. I don’t necessarily want to inundate everyone with my Photostream; I may just want to show them a couple of pictures or video from an album.  Setting up albums is really easy too.  Flickr has a slick interface and photos take on an almost luminous quality, but Photobucket’s is more user-friendly. 

Now, what did impress me about Flickr is the EXIF data stats it captures from your photo files.  It’s hard not to be awed by that much information, which may or may not ever be of any use to the average person shooting snapshots. 

 

The taxonomist in me couldn’t help but get excited about the organization of so much information!  Of course I was curious and checked out their advanced search functionality to see if it was possible to search on this wealth of metadata, but alas, those fields do not seem searchable, at least not without significant effort.  (If someone has figured it out, I’m sure they will let me know.  It’s a good challenge for my SLA colleagues.)  Still, that was one of those  serendipituous finds that will help me learn more about how my camera works and what conditions to replicate if I want a similar look for future photos.  

Well, time to stop procrastinating and start packing.  Thursday will not end for me until sometime after midnight on Saturday morning India Standard Time when I touch down in Hyderabad.

See you on the other side of the world!

Today’s quote June 18, 2008

…is from Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel, Middlesex:

“Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words.  I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.”  Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling.  I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.”

Ah, that’s just lovely.  That makes me want to write poetry again.

 

My Web 2.0 mantra: ease of use, ease of use June 17, 2008

So, I followed Chris Brogan’s advice  on personal branding tactics and set myself up a profile on Technorati to build my ego searches for my blogs. 

Maybe I should not have picked the day I’m scheduled to deploy a new portal to embark on any new social media activities, but I was intrigued by Chris’s list and wanted to start working my way down.  And besides, as anyone knows, the final piddling tasks related to portal deployment always have to do with fixing mundane content management issues (in my case, realphabetizing an entire directory of practitioner biographies) so I needed something else to distract me momentarily besides gripe about my day on Twitter.

I have to say setting up my profile on Technorati has been an absolutely frustrating experience.  I had to verify my email address three times before it would recognize me as a user, and for some reason I cannot fathom, their application has yet to validating my authority for this blog!  Oddly enough, it had no problem validating my Dragonfly Reiki site, even though both of them are on WordPress.  I don’t know if that’s an issue with Technorati or WordPress, but it concerns me. 

I’m a busy woman.  The key to social media for me has to be speed and ease of use.  I should be walked through set-up of my profile first thing.  If I have to go back and hunt around to find my profile to edit it, that’s a bad sign.  If the site doesn’t even recognize me after I’ve validated my identity three time using the code they’ve given me to do so, that’s another bad sign.  I’m more patient than most people but in order for me to sing the gospel about social media to friends, colleagues and the practitioners at my job who use the portals I manage, it has to be quick, easy and seamless. 

Now, back to alphabetizing. 

Another twist on “equally-shared parenting” June 16, 2008

Patti Ghezzi, an education reporter and one of the women on my local mom’s group lists, sent a link to a really great story in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Clifton Green, a father and Emory University professor, who washes, twists and braids his adopted daughter Miriam’s hair.  Miriam is from Africa, and he and his wife finalized her adoption about two months after their son was born.  Clifton saw that his wife had her hands full taking care of a newborn and a toddler, so he decided to take responsibility for caring for her hair.  Judging by the photos accompanying the article, he has done a fabulous job. 

As someone with ethnic hair, I can personally appreciate his efforts.  I’m half Puerto-Rican and I inherited my father’s coarse, tightly curled hair.  My parents divorced when I was very young and I had very little contact with my father’s family growing up, so I lacked a cultural point of reference where my hair was concerned.  My mother, with her fine, stick-straight hair, had no idea what to do with it.  Ponytails and barrettes were out of the question, and this was in the days before gels and pomades were widely available on the market.  So, my trips to the hairdresser meant getting my hair shorn short with clippers.  There was no attempt at style.  I remember feeling like I wanted to cover my head up afterwards.  I was tall, thin and athletic so I was often mistaken for a boy until I was a teenager.  No lingering trauma there, eh? 

My daughter’s hair right now is mostly straight, but curls are appearing at the nape of her neck.  It’s hard to know if she will end up with curly hair or not.  My mother said my hair didn’t start to curl until I was two years old.  I found myself musing recently that if Ahleia’s hair stays straight or wavy that I will need to learn how to do things like pin back sections with barrettes or make ponytails and braids!  I may need to give Clifton Green a call. 

The article touches upon the cultural significance in the African-American community of caring for hair.  And once again, we invoke Brangelina, who, according to the article, has been criticized for not doing more with their adopted daughter Zahara’s hair.  Cared-for hair is a sign of status – and more importantly, devotion.  It’s a tradition passed down the matriarchal line from generation to generation in African and African-American communities.  Grandmothers’ hands guide mothers’ hands, who guide their daughters’ hands. 

Clifton Green is doing no small thing.  Not only is he crossing racial lines, he is crossing gender lines by using his hands to weave love into Miriam’s hair. 

There is no one-size-fits-all June 16, 2008

I understand the issues in the New York Times article quite well.  It’s why I was left feeling conflicted.  My husband Seth and I have been working out our own parental balancing act since our daughter Ahleia was born last year.  Seth also has a son from a previous marriage and had very intentionally chosen to be actively involved in River’s daily life and upbringing through his own version of equally-shared parenting with his ex-wife.  Yet, things shifted a bit more radically once Ahleia was born.

My mothering began with fathering

They actually began shifting within 24 hours of Ahleia’s birth.  I had a massive post-partum hemmorhage and am fortunate to be here, writing about it now.  I was in the hospital for about a week after she was born, and for a while could not do much other than hold her from time to time.  For the first two weeks of her life, I did not change a single diaper.  It was her father who took care of her – changed her diapers, soothed her and helped feed her.  All while simultaneously tending to me, chasing down the lactation consultants and updating our families on my progress.  Once I was home, my friend Sharon, my mother and mother-in-law all spent time helping out until I could take care of Ahleia without assistance.

But in the beginning, Seth did it all. 

Yay for FWA!

I took four months of maternity leave and prior to my return, my manager called me to discuss how we would restructure my work schedule.  I was easily able to negotiate a four day full-time work week.  I go into the office three days and work from home one day per week.  Seth retained his normal five day schedule.  No one at his job asked him if he wanted to pursue a flexible-work arrangement.  I’m sure it never even occurred to them. 

Most companies just don’t get that productivity and results do not always result from five days in the office right under the boss’s nose.  I’ve also been telecommuting at least part of the work week for the past 8 years, as part of a virtual team based in several offices in the U.S. and India.

However, the article tends to give corporate America a bad rap.  Granted, many companies need to get a reality check, but don’t assume you will always have to battle it out with The Man in order to have quality time with your family.  I think a lot of it has to do with the size of the company you work for, their acceptance of diversity and how clued in management is about how technology can make people work smarter and more efficiently. 

Flex time = free time, right?

Ironically, there is a lingering perception that I have more flexibility in my schedule because of my “flexible work arrangement.”  There was an interesting point mentioned in the article – that women’s jobs are always perceived as being more flexible than men’s, regardless of their job title or responsibilities.  That perception was challenged recently when our nanny was bed-ridden after a nasty case of gastroenteritis and I could not just take two days off to watch Ahleia.  Ultimately, Seth and I had to find ways to modify our schedules so that one of us could watch her while the other one worked.  I won’t say it went smoothly or easily, but we got through it.  

Tie one on (the apron, that is)

I travel for my job.  My husband does not.  Sometimes the travel is infrequent, but during certain times of the year, I may be on a plane two or three times a month.  When I do go out of town, he takes on the responsibility of caring for two children, in addition to his full-time job and all of the normal household tasks.  It’s like being a temporary single parent, but he doesn’t complain and he actively supports my career. 

On Thursday, I’m leaving for India for 9 days, which is a long time to be away from my family.  It’s also a long time for him to assume total responsibility for the kids, the house, the dog…everything.  I’m sure he’ll return the favor one day. 

Happy Father’s Day!

Two to Tango: The Pitfalls of “Equal” Parenting June 14, 2008

I just got through reading the New York Times Magazine article, “When Mom and Dad Share it All” and although I was initially enthusiastic, as I read more I felt increasingly convinced that on some levels, the “equal parenting” model felt contrived, a kind of new social construction. 

The family tableau

One of the couples interviewed for the story, Marc and Amy Vachon, seemed to have figured out (with considerable effort on their part) an “equal-parenting” model and are evangelists for the ESP (equally-shared parenting) lifestyle.  However, the article’s lead in photo disturbed me. 

It had obviously been digitally altered to give it that odd, flat 70’s-era brownish duotone.  The family of 4 are likewise engaged in some rather disjointed activities.  The mom, Amy, is seated at the upright piano (looking eerily like my junior high school chorus teacher) while her daughter is very intently playing violin.  Her son is happily whacking on the tambourine, oblivious to the “serious” music his mother and sister are making.  But the most telling detail?  Just to the left, partially obscured by the frame, is the dad, folding laundry. 

I’m not knocking the Vachons’ intentions, which are admirable, but the photo looks almost as staged as the “Domestic Bliss” photo session Brangelina did for W magazine, perpetuating the prevailing American myth of the ideal family structure.   

Dystopia, or, this is how it really is

The composition is a visual commentary on the inherent emptiness of the obligation to fulfill roles, and that establishing “fairness” can also create unintended effects.  It struck me that Marc Vachon is relegated to the sidelines, much as dads have usually been - even though he’s set up as the exemplar of the involved dad/partner and  counterpoint to the statistics bearing witness to how women primarily assume the bulk of the mundane household chores.  Instead, it’s Amy Vachon, with her perfect posture, nodding her head in time with the music, that functions as the picture’s subject.  

As a feminist, I guess I’m supposed to feel a voyeuristic tingle of excitement: Amy doesn’t have to wash those tighty-whities if she doesn’t want to!  And yet, why do I keep feeling like this insistence on absolute equality comes with a price somewhere in the deepest recesses of our emotional existence?  One thing that my husband points out to me from time to time, which is as instructive as it is troubling, is that even though he may take on more responsibility for chores around the house or caring for our daughter, I don’t necessarily seem any less tired or stressed out than I was before – even though I do appreciate his involvement. So maybe parents are really battling something bigger than who does the dishes or puts the baby down for sleep at night.

We are not Devo (or Brangelina, for that matter)

The article itemizes how the Vachons negotiated household chores, daycare roles and work schedules and eventually achieved an enviable level of partnership parity, but as the saying goes, a picture tells a thousand words.  Just as the Brangelina spread was attempting to mythologize a family tableau that never actually existed for most people, the Vachon family tableau doesn’t exist for most families either. 

What I think what struck me the most in that photo was that no one, except maybe the son, looked like they were having a good time at all. 

Left Coast. La-La Land. Whatever it is, we’re going there on vacation June 11, 2008

Yesterday, my husband booked our flight to L.A. for the beginning of July.  The four of us (me, Seth, River and Ahleia) have done a bunch of car trips down to Orange Beach to visit my in-laws but never have the 4 of us gotten on a plane together to fly across the country.  Seth and I have gone on trips (NY, L.A. and India.)  Seth, River and I have gone on trips (only to Orange Beach, though, and never on a plane.)  And Seth, Ahleia and I have gone on trips (San Francisco and NY- not bad for an infant. I should sign her up for SkyMiles.  I want my kid to have frequent flier status, although knowing my luck, she’d get upgraded to First and I’d still be hunkered down in Coach, munching on some stale Biscoff cookies.)  So, this should be interesting. 

River has never been to L.A.  Seth came with me a couple of years ago when I was pregnant with Ahleia and in typical fashion, my father drove us past every major tourist attraction.  WIth him, you have to be careful because if you blink, you just might miss something and if you turn your head too fast, you’re likely to get whiplash as he whizzes past that place or thing you’ve only ever seen before on TV.  So, we’re renting a car this time.  My husband wants to make this a memorable trip for River, so I’m leaving it up to him to plan most of the itinerary, since I’ve seen (or at least driven past) most of the things he wants to do. 

One of the cool things we’re doing is driving up U.S. 1 to Monterey.  I’ve done that drive before (and was even able to get out of the car a few times to admire the absolutely breathtaking scenery) and I think they are going to love it.  I just hope we survive 8 hours in the car with a 15 month old.  She does pretty well for the most part when we do the 6 hour trip down to my in-laws in Orange Beach, AL, but boredom and fussiness do eventually set in.  (Actually, that goes for both kids, but River doesn’t usually resort to wailing.)  I am looking forward to the drive.  And I’m looking forward to the L.A. Galaxy – Chivas game too, so I can get my Beckham on.  What is also cool – and here is social media morphing with real life – is that I’m going to meet 4 friends that I made a couple of years ago on a WebMD pregnancy message board.  The message board sucked and we eventually went off and created our own phpbb board that we still chat on every day.  Our babies were all born within a month or two of each other, and so we’ve bonded through the entire pregnancy experience and become great friends, even though we’ve never actually met.  (The 4 women eventually did all meet each other, since they all live in Orange County.) 

I’ll be talking quite a bit about this family vacation, because it’s a tradition I did not grow up with.  My parents were blue-collar and we didn’t have a lot of money for extras.  I went on one family vacation with my parents when I was 5 and my mother was pregnant with my brother.  We went camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains in VA.  I don’t remember much about the trip other than accidentally sitting on a huge anthill and getting my pants infested with ants.  So, here’s to the first of many memorable family vacations!

Here I am. Finally. June 11, 2008

I admit it, I’m a late entrant into the blogosphere.  Given my natural penchant for electronic communications – email, text messaging, message boards – you would have expected me to have started blogging a long time ago.  I can’t really say why I was reticient for so long, other than perhaps my fear of facing the web equivalent of old-fashioned writer’s block – the empty white “Write Post” box waiting to be filled with something interesting, witty or engaging. 

I do have another blog, which is part of the website for my Reiki business, Dragonfly Reiki, but posts there are infrequent and geared more towards sharing insights gleaned from my Reiki practice.  My intention for this blog is broader than that.  Part of my motivation for this blog is to participate in the Special Libraries Association 9 week challenge to educate myself and become more proficient in using a variety of Web 2.0 technologies.  This is essential for my career as a corporate intranet portal knowledge manager, but also because I think the various ways we can connect with each other, share information/knowledge and build community is exciting.  The corporate enterprise typically has been slow to adopt these technologies, but interest and investment in them is building, so I have some catching up to do. 

Granted, I’ve done OK navigating through the social media/Web 2.0 sphere without even investing that much time or energy.  I’ve had a Classmates profile for years (which is now heating up because my *gasp* high school 20 year reunion is this year) and have had a Facebook profile for some time too.  Also del.icio.us and Twitter and FeedDemon…  I have to thank my husband for this, because his energy for diving into new web technologies far exceeds my own. 

I don’t intend for this blog to be focused on analyzing the social media/Web 2.0 universe. There are plenty of people and sites out there who understand more and do a fine job of disseminating that knowledge.  My blog is intended to focus on my life and the things that are of interest to me, while also testing out all sorts of cool tools and functionality. 

This is gonna be fun.  (For me, at least!)