I think, I thunk

Hi! I am back, did you miss us? (You are my person, if you are reading it in the voice of Kim Kardashian). After being hit by the worst flu and being buried with corporate work, I finally crawled out of the imaginary dump and took some time to write this one. This could be so high level and not so funny, but hey! that's also how life is sometimes!!! I was 28 years old when I recognized why my problems seemed like the biggest ones in the entire world. It used to feel like my world was being wrecked, there was a tsunami and an earthquake. I felt so much rage inside like a volcano and wanted to just keep asking 'Why me?'. I also used to think that when it pours, it rains for me and all the bad things come together (it did at one point of my life). Then... I began taking cognitive therapy and things started to fall into perspective. There are many AHA! moments when you start hearing yourself speak in a controlled and directed way. One of those things for me was that there are...

Back to when I came to Germany: I felt two strong emotions when making decisions. I felt grateful for all those decisions that my parents made on behalf of me. 'What to cook for breakfast, lunch and dinner' for starters (LOL- self laughing at my pun). Then there comes 'What to wear today?' - the biggest decision of all (a reason for me to be jealous of the man who lives with me). Do you know that our unconscious mind processes about 11 million pieces of information per second, while our conscious mind can only handle 40 pieces per second? That surprised me too!! With all this information, an average human's brain also makes around 35000 conscious decisions in a day (Woah!) My day starts with 'When should I wake up?', 'Which bus/train to take?', 'What to pack for lunch?', 'What to wear?', 'Which lipstick to apply?', 'Hairstyle?', 'Handbag?', 'Shoes/boots?', 'Keys/No Keys?', 'Jacket?', ...

This is when the blog takes a twisty turn from being funny to serious!! You have heard of '5 whys' at your workplace or how it is the best to find the root cause of your process issues, right? Have you ever tried that on your personal problems? Have you ever got so tuned in to solving your workplace problems that it feels like this permeates your personal life? Screens lift and here enters the bully I often ask myself, 'Why am I like this?', 'Why have I become this way?', 'Why am I not able to lose weight? I used to do this well before', 'Why is the world so cruel?', 'Why me?'. There are many more questions, but I can't talk about just the questions for the next 3 hours, so I kept the list succinct for the sake of establishing this conversation. You get the rest, don't you? Now... the best thing about asking 'Why' questions is that they are easy to ask. 'Why,' you may ask? (I thought it was funny to put this, L...

  You know what is hilarious about Germany? Beer costs less than water, but you have to pay to pee it out! Let me tell you about our adventures with the famous €1 toilet system. First, let's appreciate the irony: In a country that's so technologically advanced, yes, these fancy toilets accept card/google/apple wallet payments (welcome to 2025, I guess!). But that's not even the most ironic part - imagine paying €1 only to find there is no toilet paper! It's like paying for a lemon-rice and receiving lemons and uncooked rice. The betrayal is real! Speaking of economics, let me break down the German liquid economy: Water: €4 Beer: €2 Paying to release said and other beverages: €1 Finding no toilet paper after paying: €PRICELESS (and not in a good way!) The cost of holding it in too long: One UTI and your dignity Now, let's talk about that moment when your bladder decides to send you urgent notifications. You know, the kind that makes you regret every sip of water ...

  You know what's funny? While I sit here in my cozy German apartment, watching perfect snowflakes fall (or more likely, rain), my husband is staring at the sky. Not for the weather forecast, but because it's Sankranti, and his hands are itching to fly kites. The German skies are painfully empty of the colorful paper warriors that would be dotting every inch of Indian skies right now. Let's talk about festivals first - because nothing screams 'culture shock' quite like trying to explain to the orderly German system why adults want to climb up terraces to fly kites or why there are upwards of 400 million people wanting to bathe in Ganges. Back home, the morning would be alive with shouts echoing through neighborhoods. Here, if you scream from a terrace, someone's probably calling the Polizei. The sweet aroma of ladoos and sakkinalu has been replaced by the scent of Glühwein - not complaining, but it's just not the same, you know? And don't even get me ...

Hello, nice to meet you virtually! I am used to saying this like a million times at my workplace now. I am Shireesha Venkata Raman (did not change my surname after marriage, though I love my husband a lot!). I am a Tamilian, born and raised in Hyderabad, India. By virtue of marriage (like most girls in our part of the world), I moved to Frankfurt, Germany, where I currently live. I speak 4 languages - Hindi, Telugu, Tamil (my mother tongue), and English, and I'm trying to learn German (oh! it is so difficult and easy at the same time). My husband and I are happily living (so far!) in a quaint town near Frankfurt. The town has all the things I wanted from my childhood: a park, its own train station, a cute little cafe, and even a lake (Yet, I figured I need a therapist to help me with my thoughts). I always imagined I would read a book on a bench facing the lake while sipping my coffee - an almond milk latte (corporate life, weekend cleaning chores, and winters laughed at my face!)....