Kedar alerted me to this recent series on Minnesota Public Radio about how Minnesotans treat their newcomers. It’s always great to be able to validate my experiences – I did, in fact, have several people (never people in Minneapolis though) suggest that maybe I wasn’t friendly enough or wasn’t putting out the right vibes. This [...]
All posts for the month March, 2012
The return of “Minnesota Nice”
Posted by Shubha on March 27, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1755
7-day meditation retreat
This Saturday I start my 2nd silent meditation retreat. My last one was four days (read this and this), this one is 7ish (it’s like…6 3/4 days). The extra length of time doesn’t scare me…too much. I’ve been told that it takes 3 or 4 days to get into it so that the longer retreats [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 22, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1782
Parental Leave Around the World
(Click to enlarge) Since living in the US, I’ve noticed that although many Americans know that parental leave sucks here, they don’t realize just how bad they’ve got it. Media reports often compare the US just to Sweden or Germany and all social services are better there, so it’s hardly a fair comparison. What people [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 19, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1759
Parental Leave Around the World – data
To examine parental leave around the world, I needed a way to rank and compare countries for creating my graph. I calculated the equivalent paid days of work and ranked them based on this value. For unpaid days, I pretended there was a 1% of income pay, since unpaid days needed to count for something [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 19, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1668
Normal blood
As of this week my blood will go back to it’s regular thickness. No more unnecessary bruising! No excuse not to engage in combat sports! No excuse not to have a tattoo! For all of you fascinated with my blood clots, here is the update. I had my 6-month doppler (ultrasound… I keep calling it [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 17, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1749
STFUParents
For a while now I’ve been addicted to STFUParents. The premise of it is – parents love their kids, which is wonderful, and understandable – but parents being obsessive about their kids on Facebook is less appropriate and often even creepy. It’s totally fine to have a friend whine to you about the sacrifices they [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 13, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1741
Salty foods
I finally visited my exciting, new, famous doctor (famous because many people in New York seem to have heard of him) – Dr. Bungay. Second Yelp review: “Recently moved from NYC to Florida and I STILL see Dr. Bungay – yes I fly to NY to see my doctor. Granted I fly for free, but [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 9, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1683
Listening by focusing on you
Last meditation class was on metta, LovingKindness in English. The words of wisdom I got from Gina Sharpe, the teacher, on how to really listen and talk to someone: When you’re listening, 90% of what you should be doing is observing your own body. Brilliant.. yet I always forget it when I’m actually talking to [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 7, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1705
3-1
30 wasn’t a big stress – it was actually pretty fun! As a friend told me the other night, 30 is when you feel like you’ve just achieved adult legitimacy. You’re “in your 30″, but not yet in your thirties. You look fondly at how adventurous your 20s were, and then forward to the next [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 5, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1711
There is a deep dark secret…
Here is another one from my writing class. Be warned – it’s gruesome in only the way a long-time vegetarian (not anymore) can be when trying to write about a butcher shop. Our writing instructions: write about someone revealing of a deep, dark secret – and pay special attention to describing the environment. ————————————————————————————————— I [...]
Posted by Shubha on March 2, 2012
http://shubhabala.com/archives/1699