Welness Retreat I – Escape!

Written on: September 03, 2012 – First Day on Birchcreek Retreat Center

I have been thinking about this for a while and then in a spike of an emotional moment I ended up reserving this place at Birchcreek Retreat Center for three days – to escape, to think and to explore myself! I am sure three days can’t change my life, but I just needed to do it! I have been telling about it almost every single day for last few years!

So, in the spark of a moment, I booked the ticket at midnight(Sept 2nd) for the next day without any confirmation! Next day woke up and called the center to confirm the reservation! Then went to Port Authority to get to the bus to Pine Hills! I was supposed to be on an Eid event of a friends, hanging out eating good foods with good friends, instead I was in the bus on my way to a place I have no clue of, hoping to surprise myself!

Well, the four hour ride has been really good! Even though it was cloudy the whole day, yet I didn’t get tired of the scenic view of upstate.

Finally I reached pine hill, a small suburb if Ulster. A staff member of the retreat was there to pick me up.  When I reached there, I didn’t see anybody. After official check ins, she showed me around the place and then I got into my room, its a sweet small lovely room on 3rd floor, i could see the jungles and the water flow in the creek from the windows, exactly the kind of place I am looking for 🙂 far far away from the city, from everyone, unreachable …I am in a peaceful place! It is so silent there that my ear would start hearing a ‘zzzzzzzzzzz’ sound!

So far loving it, only thing is it doesn’t feel like it should be that expensive, but anyway, let’s see how it goes. I finally have what I wanted, at least now I will not be complaining about it anymore!

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New Career & New Begining

A break for three months wasn’t bad! However, I did realize how hard it is to stay home 🙂 So, slowly I started looking for jobs and ended up accepting the offer from NYPL (New York Public Library).

One of the main reason I chose it because of the work life balance it offers. I wanted to work at a place where I can learn and grow without any pressure, and this is exactly the place! I am so happy. The other interesting thing is, since its a library I finally could force myself to visit the library once in a while and READ(though I worked as a Software Developer in an IT department, almost every office/branch is connected to one library :))! Yesterday, I made a library card and was walking around the book aisles, without even knowing what I want. And I ended up collecting 3 books, in fact I started reading one of them and loving it!

This is exactly the kind of life I was looking forward to: enough work to keep myself busy but not overwhelming, enough time to learn new technologies and grow, and enough time to keep in touch with friends and family!

Peace is what giving me most happiness right now. I hope to utilize this wonderful opportunity to do the things I always wanted to. For now, I want to finish two books this month, and the best part is I finished almost half of both books so far, so I see good chances of achieving what I plan already 😉

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Heaven On Earth – Grand Bahamas!

After quitting my job I went for a vacation, it was not planned that I would leave my job and go for vacation, in fact this was scheduled last year, but its a coincidence it was happening at the perfect time! This was my first time in a cruise and in Bahamas. I was not sure what to expect, I heard its going to be a great experience but wasn’t sure how much. And, as you can guess, there is no surprise that, I had one of the most amazing time of life. Those 3 days went like a snap of a finger! I was mesmerized by the beauty! Sometimes, looking at the ocean and the sky in front of me while sipping the coconut drink, I almost felt it can’t be true, this amazing moment can’t happening in real, specially not in this messy earth 😛

So, here is how everything went in short summary, we started our cruise from West Palm Beach, Florida at 6PM, the cabin we had was a ocean view cabin (not too fancy), but you could see the sea while sleeping 🙂 There were unlimited food in the cruise with all different kind of snacks! They even had a midnight buffet! To my surprise, food was great!!! I wasn’t expecting that much from the cruise, specially didn’t expect simple appetizer could be so tasty and yummy!!! The cruise had different shows, like playing Bingo, magic shows, comedy shows, aerobatic shows etc. They had a casino which off course was my place after 11pm, and Roulette is the only thing I can play 😉 As a whole, the cruise was like another world where you have food, movies, shows, drinks, clubbing and a room to sleep 🙂

After the fun night at the cruise, next morning around 9AM, we reached The Bahamas (Freeport), a bus took us to Grand Lucaya Resort and when we reached there I couldn’t speak for a while, what I was experiencing was heavenly beautiful nature!!! The ocean in front of the resort, so peaceful, so blue….so serene..I really can’t express this beauty in words, and unfortunately I also didn’t have a good camera to capture even a small part of what it seems!

Well, the checking in took a while and then in the evening we went to enjoy Bonfire. The first Bonfire of my life, under the sky, just in front of the ocean, and guess what? Full Moon!! What else you can expect to have if you were in heaven, it was heavenly for me…..then the organizers of Bonfire had some shows, like fire shows, couple competitions, music, dance etc.

Next day we went to attend the Dolphin Show! They are one wonderful creature! So cute! Had so much watching them playing different tricks and moves, touching them and kissed by the dolphins 🙂

Then we came back to enjoy the beach finally, unfortunately I don’t know how to swim but I was able to go to the water till my shoulder and loved it. I was jumping and lying in the water as long as I could, the temperature was so perfect!

There was a small market across the street from resort, so I bought some show pieces with Bahamas icon in it 🙂 The food there was good as well.

At night we watched movie lying down around the pool, the roaring ocean on the left and the full moon on right….I wish that moment never ended!! But it did, we came back next day. I wanted it to last forever, I was sad thinking why I never went to such place ever before, but I was also very happy to find out at least I did this time…it has been a great experience! Even though the moments did not last forever, I brought back those memories, everytime, now, when I think of the ocean, I smile, I cherish every second I had there!

I wish and hope, from now on I plan most of my vacation somewhere like this – where I can experience heaven on this earth 🙂

Flipped The Coin of Life!!!

Collected From Here

Finally, I flipped the coin of my life!

Everything was going smooth, at least that’s what it seemed from outside, but from inside, I was devastated, too much pressure at work, too many personal responsibilities, everything was messed up, everyday I used to wake up lost, had no clue where am I and what the hell I am doing with this life, I was loosing myself. I tried my best, but then I realized, I had to take the decision! Either one of the best or one of the most stupidest one – but I had to do it, and I did – I quit my job. My very well paid and very respectable job, I just quit, without any plan so far ahead of me I just did it. It was a weird feeling: free, sad, nervous, restless, peaceful – all at the same time!!
I am not sure whether I was more sad or more peaceful, but I do know for sure, I loved myself for doing that, it made me realize that I still have that spark left in me – am not scared!!

The rules of society and life threaten us in every decision we make, we are scared to do things which we feel will not go with the flow of society or comfort. I denied to live in that fear and did what I felt right for me! May be, it will not end up as nicely as I want it to, but I don’t think I will ever regret doing this, because I know myself, and I know how much I believe in respecting my own will 🙂

So, cheers to my bold decision and (hopefully) to a promising future ahead 🙂

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

And Here I Am – Finally Writing!

My last post was on August 2010! OMG! I didn’t even write a single piece in 2011! Have I stopped writing forever? Its not like I used to write very important stuffs, but at least I had a presence in the web where I was sharing things I like or dislike or articles/poetry I read! But now, it seems I have nothing to talk about. Where did that Lipna go? I don’t know! The possible reason is I really don’t get much time for myself these days. I am either working, or meeting friends/relatives (much much less frequently), or cooking, or doing laundry or watching movies exhausted and tired!! I rarely get a time just for myself! Time when I am doing nothing, no chores needs to be done, no task needs to be completed, just some relaxing time when I can pause for a moment, look at my life, thinking about what am I doing, what is my destination, what’s happening around me? If I could manage to have the time to ponder on these thoughts, I would have wrote and shared some of these. I don’t want to stop writing, I know, I am not a good writer, but that doesn’t mean I can not try to be one. I shall try! I want to start writing again!!!

Anyway, it snowed only thrice I guess here in NY City this winter so far. Yesterday (theoretically today :), I was out at 2.00 AM, and it was snowing, my hair, hands filled with little snow flurries and I looked up in the sky and loved it! I felt connected to the nature again after a long long time. My roller coaster speedy life paused for a moment last night, and I enjoyed every bit of it 🙂 I want more pauses in my life like this for myself, I don’t want to live like a robot, eat, sleep, work, watch a movie, meet friends and eat again without really being connected to them I want a life which provides more than that, I want to be more connected to the nature, I want to be connected with my friends and family with heartfelt love and care, not just meeting once in a blue moon and disappeared for the rest times, I want to be part of something creative, may be painting, may be writing….I want to live a life which will make me smile when I leave this world not disappointed!! At least I know what I want from my life. I hope I will work towards full filling them!

Well, it feels good writing after so long! Hope all the readers are doing great and having a good time. Till the next post, Adios people!!!!

2009 – Achievements vs. Failures!!

Achievements:

2009 - Achieve vs. fail!

1. Got a job in that recession period!!!! (Jan 2009)
2. Bought my first car – Infiniti I30.
3. Learned a completely new(!) technology – Symfony (An MVC Framework).
4. Grew my nails like a stylish gal 😛 (stopped biting nails)
5. Had a wonderful Europe Tour – Iceland, England, Switzerland & Italy.
6. Took the strong decision of leaving the job and joining hubby in west coast!!!

7. Started going to gym.
8. Started cooking regularly 🙂

9. Visited family in Bangladesh!!

Failures:

1. Could not finish my PHP Zend Certificate exam ..still pending.
2. Could not lose weight to the extent I wanted
3. Not been involved much into any activity such as social or voluntary!
4. Could not maintain the habit of eating healthy food 😦
5. Could not finish a project I always wanted to work on!

I have few more failures in mind which I don;t blame myself for not doing given the timing and other circumstances, but I hope I am able to do finish those targets on 2010!! Best of luck for to myself!!!

The Awakening

Today I read a wonderful piece of articles, something I have been really looking forward to for long time. It gave me peace which could calm me and gave me enough energy to move forward with hope and prospects ahead. Loved reading it!! Here it is for you:

The Awakening

Author: Unknown

“A time comes in your life when you finally get…when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out…ENOUGH1 Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on. Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to magically appear over the next horizon.

You realize that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings, and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you…and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are…and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself…and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you – or didn’t do for you – and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and everything isn’t always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself…and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties…and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you’ve outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with.

You learn that there is power and glory in creating and contributing and you stop maneuvering through life merely as a “consumer” looking for you next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don’t know everything, it’s not you job to save the world and that you can’t teach a pig to sing. You learn the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love. You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You learn that alone does not mean lonely.

You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO.

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs.

You learn that your body really is your temple. You begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin to eat a balanced diet, drinking more water, and take more time to exercise.

You learn that being tired fuels doubt, fear, and uncertainty and so you take more time to rest. And, just food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that, for the most part, you get in life what you deserve, and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different than working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance. You learn that no one can do it all alone, and that it’s OK to risk asking for help.

You learn the only thing you must truly fear is fear itself. You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your own terms.

You learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn’t always fair, you don’t always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people…and you lean not to always take it personally.

You learn that nobody’s punishing you and everything isn’t always somebody’s fault. It’s just life happening. You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You lean that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Then, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than you heart’s desire.

You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

You hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind.

Finally, with courage in you heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.”

Acknowledgement: Online Resource

My Status!!

Its been a while I got a chance to update my blog, so many changes and ups and downs in my life have made it difficult for me to keep track and to express those in my blog. Now things seem relatively better and in a stable shape 🙂

With all the happenings around me for last few months I am completely convinced that life is full of unexpected things and unstable situations. The more you try to keep it stable, handle things the more new things come up to make it worse! And it all happens when you strive for better things. If you just accept the life as it is without much of an expectation it remains more stable compare to when you strive for better goals, improvements. However, what i have learnt and which we all mostly know, no matter what, if you believe that you can do it and then go for it, it does give you some hard time, but persistence will make it happen and you will be able to stabilize with your destination with some time.  But, we are not generally happy with our goals, the better we become, we strive for even more, this never ending process goes on and we really never get a chance to have calm and quiet stage in our life!!

My philosophical thoughts are getting complex i guess 😛

Well, I have got myself into a nice job that is very stressful but interesting & exciting, have settled in a small sweet town, no city hype. This a stage of my life where I can completely focus on my past and future and decide on how I want to proceed with the knowledge from my past failures and weaknesses. This is perfect time to shape myself even better, stronger to manage things properly from now onwards.  Away from all friends and family and specially the city events and all, this is a wonderful opportunity to focus on myself and I am really happy and excited for getting the opportunity.

The thing I am most excited doing is learning few new technologies @ work. To name a few, I am working on OOP PHP, Symfony Framework and Ajax. I never had much exposure to these things before, I have mostly worked on Java and Struts framework (Database off course). I am so happy to get into these web technologies which is diversifying my skill. I believe this is the time when web technologies are very important and has more project opportunities than other technologies. So, the more I expertize in these fields the more I have opportunities open for myself. Also, so many things i have always wanted to do of my own greatly require this skills. I have got some very good & helping colleagues and its a wonderful journey for me to learn all these exciting technologies.

I guess this is the first time in my life, I am really into work. I am enjoying what I am doing and I am  doing it passionately.  I have always wanted to know & learn things, work hard and succeed. But for one reason or another I could not do so. Now, the time has come and I am excited having this chance.

With a new life started, I hope to update my blogs from now on with new happenings! With work pressure and all, I don’t know how frequent I can be. But I will try 🙂

(Online Collection)

Updates – But Nothing To Update :)

Just thought to write some updates about whats going on even though there is no updates 😛 & nothing new is happening in life!!!

First of all, no luck about job search yet except for few interviews here and there. After around two years am giving interviews and finding it pretty interesting. I know it won’t be that interesting once I start getting rejections 😀 Well, I am kinda trying to convince myself by taking these interviews as mock interview to prepare myself for the real ones. LOL!! I know its lame but this thought is keeping me strong and well managed, moreover I try to learn from the interviews, my mistakes and prepare better for next time. Now, If i take these interviews seriously I would definitely end up screwing future chances by being upset for silly mistakes and rejections!!!( These are nothing but impact of too much self-development readings 😛 )

Other than this one interview thing everything else is as it is. Pretty much same old story. Living in a room whole day, applying for jobs, time to time preparing and giving interviews –  quite boring life 😦 Interstingly though, this boredom has not eaten my brain yet and I am still able to handle it nicely like a strong good girl 🙂

Even though the weather here is getting cold, everytime I talk to my  friend in NY, I find how blessed I am living here as its too cold there and I usually used to get sick at this time of year while I was in NY. Thank God, because of the blessing of California weather I am doing pretty good health wise so far!!

However, I am visiting NY for the long weekend and am really worried about the cold part!!! When I bought the ticket I was so excited that I could not wait, and now after checking the temparature I am getting scared!!!! Anyway, whether cold of warm, NY is NY, and I know I will still like it 🙂

Till I have this wonderful vacation, I should better preapre myself even more for the mock ( 😉 ) interviews !!!!