Ramblings Only

This week started off normal, took a nose dive to the depths of depression, tension, unnecessary in my mind but still, and then ramped back up to normal.

As we decide on a school for dotter, I go back to my own school days. Kendriya Vidyalaya had a good mix of all kinds of kids. It was literally Rs 5 a month of school fees, later bumped to Rs 15 a month girls and Rs 45 a month for boys. Life was easy. It was easy to be a star in the class if I may say so. My father then thought I needed more challenge and put me in this very prestigious private school. All this is old news, I have said so a million times in my good old blog. But the two years were eye opening to me. They helped me aim higher, not limit myself. The contacts I have still help me in various ways. And a good friend says I would have reached even higher heights or whatever had I studied in the private school from the beginning. It was big strain on my fathers pockets but I more than made up for it the future years. 

Now one can argue that this glimpse of the elite rather spoilt my life always wanting for more than I actually have, because of the delusion that I am like the elite classmates I had in my private school. There is a vast disparity in the kind of friends I have. If I had not seen what the kids aspire for in the private school I may have been happy with normal life in a normal job. Not saying that is degrading in anyway. I think overall my father did the right thing, to challenge me and push me to stretch myself. I struggled and I cried but I reached a new normal. 

This week dotter got admission into this school which is expensive and is in one of the most expensive parts of Bay Area. I love the concept of the school. That is like my thoughts on schooling put into action. Learning made fun. So this week DH and I have gone from ditching the admission to trying to move into the area closer to her school or somewhere closer. It all seemed very very real. Expensive homes which made my humble abode feel like a palace and so new! I am not ready to move out of our beautiful house. I won't get the convenience of my small but efficient kitchen. Apparently we cannot even afford to rent there, exorbitant prices. It made me feel very small and unaccomplished. I guess only entrepreneurs and venture capitalists can live there. Ok may be Facbook and Google employees too, but it is a bit too late for me to change my industry now. I have never given thought to living in the Peninsula. We automatically chose our city because we were new to the area and we just tried to follow what the rest of the folks who moved to the area did. 

When I came to the US I thought it was a level playing field, everyone with the same opportunities and it probably still is in many places except the Bay Area. This  land of startups has made several overnight millionaires who can afford the exorbitant prices compared to regular worker bees with like us. You can see I feel severely underaccomplished. 

Anyway we are going to defer the admission while we look at our options. DH or I move closer to her school or we move closer to her school. It definitely doesn't help that DH works in SF with a nightmare commute. We still have to argue when we have meetings that conflict with our respective pick up and drop off times. One parent pick up drop off will never work. 

We have two school options for dotter. Home school which has gone into lottery boohoo. And the school she is going to right now. Home school would be best on one hand, life will be a breeze, easy pick up drop offs. Fingers crossed. Current school is also a breeze, no change, just continue the schedule.

Met a friend for lunch on Friday and I felt really valued when he brought his director for lunch since I said I was looking at opportunities in his company. Woah! Now  I am not exactly ready to move I am just exploring options. I may decline the offer if they give me one. And I don't want to lose the amazing friendship we share. Somehow this person has a very good opinion about me, we worked together a few years ago. ;--P I would like it to stay that way. But he and the director are always stretching themselves going the extra mile, not sticking to just the job responsibilities. It is always nice to be surrounded by such motivated folks. 

Life has been so low key I almost miss being busy with a lot of things. A friend with women network emails me and asks if I can help out with something. I want to pounce on it so I can feel the comeraderie and the high of doing something for others, for women. 

It is better to be too busy to think about how incompetent you are. So I am ready to fill up my calendar!