Do you believe in signs

I am not talking about Manoj Night Shyamalan's movie "Signs", but things that happen around us which give us indication of what lies ahead. Recently, I saw a hindi movie called "Anjaana Anjaani". In the movie, the lead pair tries multiple attempts at their lives, alone and in group. But they dont succeed. Finally, they give up thinking they might have some unfinished work left in their lives. I am talking about these signs.

It happens that you get up in the morning and some email (nowadays everybody gets up with their hand held devices and check their mail as first thing) irks you. The other things that happen in the day, pretty much follow the same pattern.

Today, I woke up and just as I was getting ready, my phone rang. CID (caller id) said "anonymous caller". I picked up and somebody named John said he is calling from some school education funding program. I started telling him about removing my name and number from their list and I dont want to get a call again. Since I have already told this several times to these tele sales folks, I was rather annoyed and threatened to file a complaint (I still dont know where I would have lodged the complaint). Then, I checked my mail and there was an annoying mail from my team member. I responded to him and he responded back. After about 5 email exchanges, he agreed to talk rather than send emails. We had a heated discussion without much resolution. As soon as I completed writing mail to his boss complaining about his behavior, I got a call from my wife. She blamed me for turning off "heated dry" option in dish washer. I told her that I didn't do it, but it didn't help and we had another long argument.

The first sign of the day was a phone call and my day is not over yet. I dont know when will the effect of signs be over. To complicate matters, I have one-on-one meeting with my boss in next 30 minutes.

Green Card - to be or not to be

This is the normal dinner topic for all the desis (for starters desi can be any non American, but is typcially used to refer to Indian citizens by fellow Indians) during a social gathering. What is the priority date for green card? When will I get my green card? Most of us are travelling in the same boat where we wait for 7-10 years to get the green card. During this wait, we end up checking the status of queue almost every alternate day. People have built business models around this emotional idea where there are portals which tell about your status. If you want to crib about it, there are Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs on the same site.

Sometimes I wonder that do we put our careers at stake by waiting for green card for long? During the wait for green card, you cannot switch jobs. Even worse, I have heard stories where the engineers have been mentally totured because the employer knows that till the time he gets his green card, the engineer will not move.

The contrasting theory can be why do you wait for green card? Is it just to be able to change the job. But if you are working hard, chances are your organization loves you and is keeping you happy. Then why do you want to leave or even think about leaving.

Or we just want the freedom to be able to move whenever we want. Even if we dont switch jobs, but somewhere within we know that we can switch over.