এলোমেলো ভাবনা

Fiction: The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: A true page-turner. This book is about Harry Poter met Hunger Games. A true masala book will keep you captive through all 400+ pages. This is a book about the imaginary world of Navarre, where an elite group of dragon riders safeguards the kingdom's borders. At the heart of the story lies a young girl who dreams of joining the dragon riders despite her physical limitations. Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros: This is the sequel of the fourth Wing. Though I enjoyed reading it, this is much slower than the earlier book. Some sections were unnecessarily long. I also did not get the ending. I guess for that, I have to read the next book of the series. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover : This is a book about kids who grew up in abusive households. The long-term damage it creates in kid's psychology. How a girl and boy grew up in an abusive household recognizes the pattern and ultimately breaks it. It starts with Us by Colleen Hoover: Thi...

These are the books I read and loved in 2019 Becoming By Michelle Obama : My 2019 started with reading this book. I enjoyed the first half of the book about Michelle's childhood, struggles with disable parents. Even after her high counselor's harsh comments how she made it to Princeton. How , against all odds her and Barak made it to white house. After white house , it became a bit political , that I did not like much. Inheritance by Dani Shapiro: A memoir of genealogy, paternity, and love. A middle aged woman took a 23&me genealogy test just for fun. It took her whole world upside down as she found she was conceived by artificial insemination. She was able to track down her biological father and met him . This story is better than any fiction. Twist and turns in every pages. Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg : I had high hopes for Smarter Faster Better , as I loved Charles Duhigg's previous book  Power of habits .It missed the mark for me . It is basic...

My 2018 priorities were my career and parenthood. It was super difficult to drop the ball on everything else. I struggled to keep my head straight. Ultimately all my hard work payed off. I was promoted to more senior managerial position. For my other priority, I made sure, I spend quality time with Ishaan every week. We explored zoo, museums, music , swimming, craft classes, waterfalls, small hikes, libraries and many more things together. I took her to 2 international trips. i.e. Toronto and Dhaka. Her vocabulary got visibly better after each trip. It's amazing to watch her grow from a baby to toddler . As for my 2018 achievements :  1. I decided to meditate at least 5 minutes a day . I spent 1786 minutes meditating this year.  2.I tried to do something new each month to push my comfort zone. I experienced quite a few fun things.  3. I took Ishaan to 2 international trips. For 2019 I would like to do : 1. Get back to a healthy active lifestyle. That means cuttin...

Book Review : January 2018 Everything I never told you by Celeste Ng is a book based on bi racial 2nd generation immigrant family and their struggle. It's a book that touches many social issue in 1980s , which undoubtably still exists in different from. Marian , a woman with great potential marries a 1st generation immigrant, James.   Though James grew up in US, however he never felt at ease in his own country. He was unable to make friends . They hoped their oriental looking children will have better luck. The undo pressure on their children , makes them feel even more unease. Author hit so many notes in each character, from woman's lib to parenting to racism . I can relate to almost all the characters in the book. Each character has very different struggle. As a 1st generation immigrant working parent, I can relate to lot of their struggle. Great work from a new author.

Another December has come. It time to do 2017 year end review and 2018 resolution. I'm very surprised I follow thru most of my 2017 resolution. 2017 Review Loose baby weight - I lost most of my baby weight. However, the holiday season is making it hard to keep it off. Become an effective mom - I don't know if I 'm effective or not. However, I'm more comfortable in my mom role and enjoy spending time with my little one. Overall I enjoy motherhood. Advance in my career - I took on a leadership role in my current organization in 2017 Make an effort to talk to a stranger every week - This one I did quite regularly. I became more comfortable making small talks with strangers. Not only  that I build a great network for all kind of help. Bonus : This was not in my resolution. But I read a quite a few fiction and non fiction books.  Now my resolution for 2018 Meditate at least couple of minutes everyday. Took an international trip with my daughter.  Do s...

I’m trying to amp my reading this year. Here is some of my recent readings and what I think about those books.  Fiction: ·        Cinder By Marissa Mayer: 1 st book of Lunar chronicles. Sci-fi thriller loosely based on fairytales. This book left me wanting more. I finished next 2 books “ Cress ” and “ Winter ”. Writer dragged "Winter" a bit. She could have finished the book while the suspense lasted. ·         A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman : This book reminded me of Himu by Humyun Ahmed. Feel good book. ·        The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: Too mellow dramatic. Not as much thriller as I expected Good read for a rainy afternoon. Non- Fiction: ·         Brag! The art of tooting your own horn w/o blowing it : Great book on Networking ·         Leadership and Self Deception: Conversational...

Can't believe  it's December . 2016 has been a great year. This is the year I become a mom. I  usually do an end year look back and next years look ahead plan quite religiously. I'm quite surprised that I didn't do it for 2016. Not sure why? 2017 Resolution Loose baby weight Become an effective mom Advance in my career Make an effort to talk to a stranger every week 2016 Achievement Have my daughter Became a commission member for my city complete business intelligence certification Disappointment: Couldn't finish ski lessons, as after the very first class I learned I was pregnant. For same reason didn't travel or hike that much.

02/04/2016 I experienced my first morning sickness today. Tough it didn't happened in the morning. It happened during lunch. I was in a meeting, right before lunch. about 10.30am. Mt stomach started growling. I thought I was hungry. I was planning to have a hearty bean burger with lots of pickles and hot sauce. but as soon as I looked at the burger, I felt so repulsed. I closed  my eyes for few seconds.  Tried some dried ginger to get true the moment. 02/09/2016 everyday is a new adventure . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty31QY5ZGHo 02/11/2016 This week I became more comfortable with the idea of being pregnant. I don't have much nausea yet. However, I'm having very bad acidity and gas.  I woke up and go to bed with bad acid test in my mouth. I think the baby will be like Yeameen and won't like tart foods, which is my favorite :( Digestion is not good as well. Don't feel like anything I make. Junk food tests awesome though :p 02/17/2016 As I just...

Few days back , I wrote this on social media, reinforcing my believe in hard work. My dad always says "There is nothing called free lunch, you pay for it one way or other" . When Senetor BERNIE promises FREE tuition, health care, it scares the hell out of me. I wonder who is going to pay for this? Teachers or doctors are not going to offer their service for free. I earned my education; worked really hard to pay off my student debt. I believe it builds character, it builds dream. I want my children to experience that some day.FREE makes people lazy and lazy people can't make a difference in the world. There is no alternative of hard work. It's the only way to achieve AmericanDream.  It somehow attracted lot of conversation on my social media. Some  shared their views, own personal stories, some applauded, some even called me arrogant or ignorant. I would like to clear the air. May be I did not make my views very clear.  Here is a little bit of my ...

2015 was a quite & happy year. I think I grew a lot. I took only 2 trips this year . We went to Alaska in summer and Hawaii in winter.  However, we did hike quite extensively this year. I hiked to the top of mailbox peak . This is so far the hardest hike I completed. It was a personal achievement. I also completed my 1st 10k in an hour this year.  Yermeen and I started crossfit training in January  and continued through out the year.  In fall I started going back to school. Not for MBA. though. I 'm working towards certification in Business Intelligence with UW ( university of Washington). It was a compromise. With my very demanding full time job and marital life, I simply do not have the bandwidth for concentrating in MBA. I volunteered with YWCA . I taught ESL ( English as Secondary Language) to non native speakers. It was quite a fun experience. My baby sister got married toward the end of the year. We had lots of house guest this year. For 2016 I do ...

Few days till the new year . How fast time fly? I grew older but did I grow wiser? Most likely not. Each year I do my resolutions , most of them remain, unfinished, half done. For past 3 years starting my masters , has been top of my list. However, it seems so far reach some times. This is my last year putting it top of my list  yet again. If  it does not happen this year, most likely it would not happen in near future and I have to accept it. New Years Resolution 2015 GMAT Learn Yoga Start volunteering  Learn to give up controls and communicate efficiently. Achievement & disappointment of 2014 I consider, 2014 one of my recent successful year. Yeameen and I bought our first house together.   I also paid off my student and car loan.  I am enjoying debt free life, except the mortgage . I also learn biking . It was one of my personal challenges. Took few awesome trips ( Hawaii, Yellowstone, grand canyon, San Fransisco, Vegas and Washington...

I take on various personal projects to challenge myself. Such as run 1 mile for 30 days or don’t get pissed for a week, take a fruit for a month.    I have succeeded many of these small challenges and failed terribly as well.   Not getting pissed was one of the hardest one. I aimed for 4 weeks and gave up after the 1 st . This time I am taking a very ambitious challenge that is why I am writing about it just so that I can keep on track.     A friend of mine is doing it on facebook.   She had already made couple of failed tries. Let’s see how it goes for me. This is my 100 happy days challenge starting from March 3 rd 2014. I will write about something that made me happy for each day for 100 days. Here I go. Day 1(3.3.2014) - It was pouring so hard. I was struggling with my umbrella, laptop bad, purse to get my building badge out.   An unknown person pushed the access door button from inside to let me in. This kind gesture of a stra...