Tag: IPhone

Family, Myself, Random

Walking Dreams

Sanjay Sabarwal

A gray morning. Perfect for my fuzzy thoughts as I pulled Bella along our 2 mile walk (the pedometer on my iphone told me so). I wondered what my obsession was with tracking all that I did lately.  As if the pedometer made the walk real, or it made it more than me just being the valet for my dog to take her shits’ which I dutifully scooped up. Or perhaps it was a way to distract myself from seeing the hurt on my parent’s face as they still processed what someone close to us had done. We don’t mention their names anymore, but that doesn’t make them disappear, in fact, it makes the hurt deeper. Their recent actions now are scrutinized under new lenses, and it makes me wonder when they began resenting or perhaps even hating us to do this.  I want to ask why they didn’t tell us what they wanted, but maybe they didn’t want our input or perhaps wanted to get away from our shadow to mark their own territory.

Yet I know that stepping on someone’s back to get up maybe OK occasionally, but not to break it. Each day, I want to text or email them ranting away, but really it’s just pain I want to get out. The pain of lost holidays, and the loss of seeing their faces. The number of relationships that we thought were made of love now just a shared last name. And Bella keeps tugging, the pedometer keeps recording steps, and I struggle to be grateful for the rising sun, and the slowly awakening street. I as for forgiveness for my unkind thoughts, and ask for the strength to forgive who just threw away a relationship like an empty wrapper.

I turn on the app TuhiTuhi, and I get lost in the voice of Veer Manpreet Singh, and for the next 15 minutes I just listen with an open heart and express my gratitude for being still being on this earth, still having the ability to walk my dog just 9 months after brain surgery. It hits me that I am recording everything because I wish to remember that I am not sitting idle. I am not letting life pass by, but am trying to live it each day to the best of my ability. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

Myself

The Wondering Lawyer…

Sanjay Sabarwal
English: Icon of Law Firm--owned by user.
English: Icon of Law Firm–owned by user. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday, I attended the LACBA’s annual wage and hour symposium, and the first thing that struck me was the amount of lawyers who showed up the millennium Biltmore, but more than that, how almost all of them dressed alike. Men in suits, and he women in business outfits with some calves showing and business appropriate beige or black low heels. A majority of them with the obligatory iPhone/blackberry, and/or laptop, the low light of the devices making it feel as I was on Krypton.   Of course, there were some outliers. One wore a Hawaiian  shirt, and another came with a hat, suspenders on blue jeans.  I was in the middle, no jacket, business shirt with no collars and almost too tight pants (that’s what I get for eating all the chocolate I can at night).  The glow of the devices filled the darkened conference room, and I only felt one feeling: Glad.

I am glad, I don’t work as a lawyer. I am glad that I am not in uniform. I am glad that I don’t have to report for duty. Yet, there was a nagging feel that perhaps, just perhaps, I was missing something. And then it hit me that I missed law school.  The camaraderie, the kosher food with my friend Elias, and the nick name “The Three Wise Men” that was given to us by our class mates.  Well, I was Indian, my best friend was black, and the third was an orthodox Jew.  We made quite an impression when we walked the aisles.  Yet it was more than that. I missed knowing the law as an intellectual exercise, but more so I regret never getting actual practice at a law firm.  So I know why I was looking down at the attorneys now, I was preempting my insecurity before it got the best of me.  In some ways, I couldn’t help thinking that they were REAL attorneys while I played one at my business.

Yet as my best friend pointed out, I am selling myself short. I know the basics, and been around issues at my workplace to have a good grasp of employment law as it relates to my industry.  The nagging feeling left after I finished the conference, but I can’t help feeling that I missed out on some parts of being an attorney.  My only consolation now is that I can learn as needed, and I don’t have to punch a clock. Some days, that has to be  enough.

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Diet, Myself

Locks: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
by Jemal Yarbrough

It amazes me how freeing it can be when you acknowledge the locks you have in your life.  From hesitating on working out in the mornings to blindly charging over $100 in Starbucks coffee, I am slowly seeing the things that are holding me captive to a financial flat line.  I see the locks now, and now each action of mine is becoming deliberative and it hurts my heart to see how much I have wasted on value-less items.  It was is I was filling up my world with things to give myself value when deep down I knew that my worth was more than the blue tooth headphones I use at the gym.

Marriage can do that to you.  Sharing finances with someone who I love so much was scary at first but her kindness and gentle humor at the silly things I used to spend as loosened the lock of fear I had.  Now I just have to stick to a budget so we can truly accomplish the things we want most in this world: security, charity and maturity.

Myself

Alone

Sanjay Sabarwal
Cover of "Conversational Spanish (Living ...
Cover via Amazon

Today, I hit 204 pounds, only 14 pounds away from my idea goal.  I am also on Lesson 4 of Pimsleur’s guide to Spanish. almost halfway through beginning conversational Spanish.  Today was also the last day for my online UCLA class of Bringing Characters to Life. To top of all this, we have finally begun discussion on wedding dates. I should feel satisfied but I am not as it hit me that a lot of what I am doing is being done alone.  I have failed to share my passions and victories with the ones I love but worst of all, it does not appear that it matters to them.  I am lonely but motivated.  Sad but looking forward to life ahead.  Angry because I am suffocating with frustrations and old hurts

I know I probably exaggerating but I can’t seem to let go of that feeling, and thus I am still blowing up over absolutely trivial things. I also know that there are some I should avoid, some I should handle gingerly, some with love but most of all some with caution as whatever comes out of my mind, seems to end up on their plate.  I have no privacy or at least it feels like it but more than anything else I just cannot believe how I have treated some who are dear to me especially her.  I owe her more than an apology, I owe her my life.

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Myself

My Tools

Sanjay Sabarwal
A hoodie with the University of California, Lo...
Image via Wikipedia

The assignment seemed straight forward enough: describe my writing tools and place you will use to write. No problem. Look at Ipad adoringly, check. Sleek wireless keyboard, check. Brand new ipad stand, check. My 2008 Dell laptop (a bit too dated for my taste but fine as a back up), check. 5 subject UCLA notebook incase I get the inclination to handwrite to the right of me, check. Then realized that I HATE writing unless I have my Montblanc and I remembered, I lost it at the hospital, left blank. Being annoyed that I don’t have a printer (even thought the last time I printed something was over 6 weeks ago), double check. Phew, all needed tools ready. Time elapsed: 60 minutes.

Now where to write. Using the ipad as the writing tool at first seemed a mistake since it severly cut down the places I could place it so I could type my 35 words a minute error filled pace, but the gadget freak in me relished the idea of being 2010 rather than 1990 (the year I graduated high school). Ok so settled down in my parents kitchen and withing 15 minutes realized that wouldn’t work as my dads music room next door keep blasting old indian music while he work on a pet project of his, and made me slightly made me deaf, perhaps to imitate hiis 70 years of being hard of hearing.

So moved upstairs, and although words drifted in from mom’s tv show downstairs intermingled with old bollywood, I manage to create some of my own, one of the first times ever I have written here. Success! or is it?

Decided to go to my house (removed 6 houses away from my parents) and while the calmness of the place soothed me, it really create any need for me to regurtitate anything really creative, Pass on my house for now.

Parents house it is.

Total time elapsed 2 hours.