Tell Congress to Act Now to Lower Energy Costs!!!!

If you haven’t heard….speculation in the gas and oil markets are hurting us. We need to make it stop, and yes, you can help! 67% of Americans want oil market regulations - do your part!

Visit the website, fill in the form, and it sends an email to your state’s Congressmen/women to take action.

By the way… crude oil prices were down to $130…after being over $140 just two days ago. Keep it down!!!!!!

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

So I got some slack from a few of my friends for writing a post from class. If only you guys knew the *pain* we go through every Tuesday and Thursday sitting in this class…..and you would be blogging too!!!!

Anyway, because today was such a good day, I felt like blogging. But before that, I noticed that I really didn’t talk about the 4th of July long weekend. So I am going to start there first.

4th of July is of course USA’s Independence Day. This year it was on a Friday, so Neeraj and I were very lucky to have our dear friend Beth come and visit us in STL. I was very excited because Beth hadn’t seen our house yet, and I wanted her to see it.

I am bored out of my mind in this class. It should end in a half hour but I am doubting it with the pace the professor is going through the lecture. This has so far been the worst class for us at SLU.

Anyway, to pass the time, I wanted to share with you our current exploration of flight tickets to Europe for the latter part of August. Neeraj and I have been tracking various websites to find out the best rates.

Here are some of the good ones that also let’s you search for international fares:

I have stopped checking sites like Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, Hotwire, etc… They really don’t provide any good rates. Same for travel agents - Internet rates are definitely more competitive rather than going to a travel agent (my own experience).

With the crude oil price so high, you have to keep checking for prices. We have been checking since March - and really, we haven’t seen much of a difference. We do see that if we buy a month ahead of time, we will see some favorable difference, but nothing much more than that. Its crazy when traveling to Europe can be comparable to traveling to India

Today was the first day in quite some time that crude oil prices were down ($6 to be exact ), so Neeraj wants to wait to buy the tickets, and FareCast has reaffirmed his decision.

So if you are traveling soon, have a look at the websites above. They may come out handy for you. Right now I have them setup to send me daily alerts to let me know if rates are changing so that we can make a quick decision if we want. As a fact that I had read, fares usually change within 50 hours, so these alerts can come in very handy.

The other thing I have noticed is that its better to have flexible dates. We have fixed dates, and its guaranteed that we will pay more on the date that we want to leave rather if we would have left two days later. In our case, it doesn’t make sense to leave two days later because we are going on a long weekend.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

Neeraj and I have been hooked on Jo Jeeta Wohi Superstar since it began on Star Plus. But this past Friday was a sad day..atleast for me. Vinit was voted off the show…. Vinit. Kya yaar…The guy that scores the highest was voted off. Really shocking for me because I really thought that this time Vinit had it within him to go all the way to the end. The only one that really would be stopping him is the very consistent Debojit. Out of nowhere, Debojit has been really singing well (loved the Sharabi song that he sang). Really I thought it was going to be a repeat of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa but the Indian junta let me down.

The other thing is that I think the judges play favorites with Abhijeet. Theek hai woh jeeta hai Indian Idol but come on yaar….play it fair. I really suspected that Farah woh definitely have her favorites, but not Vishal & Shekhar. They would definitely play the game fair, but the week previous, I also saw them giving higher scores to Abhijeet even though he sang horribly. Even this time, Vishal was much more fair than Shekhar. If you are a judge, you should really act like one.

Out of everyone else, I think that Toshi is the weakest. He hasn’t been performing great these days, seems like the riyaaz is much much less for him. He isn’t getting to the Vinit or Debojit’s level who come back every week with a rocking number. Not only do they sing the song in their own stye, but they sing it well. Abhijeet has been of course off his rocker - not been singing well at all. Rahul remain flamboyant as ever but he sang better previously. Harshit is also off….not singing in tune and don’t know if it is because he gets nervous on stage or what, but he these days isn’t singing as well as the beginning of the show. Sometimes I think that they are just getting tired but then its like, if they are getting tired now, then how will they ever be able to do this for the rest of their lives?

Anyway, very sad I am for Vinit. He really didn’t deserve to be voted off…atleast not this week. Now I don’t even know who I should root for…..most likely Harshit? Nah….it will have to be Debojit. I feel really deserves it more than anyone else.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

How quickly time flies right…..it was just a few weeks ago that I was dreading to start our MBA class (statistics) for the summer. Now we are just one lecture and then the final exam away from it being over Time flies quickly…

Time flies quickly in so many other ways…..such as it was just a few months ago that we didn’t even know whether Hillary or Barack Obama were going to be the Democratic nomination. Now that has also been decided. GO OBAMA!!!!

Or how quickly time flies when we think about the price of gasoline. I remember when it was 99 cents a gallon….then $2 a gallon..and now look at us…. reaching a whole $4 a gallon!

Time flies…to think that a year ago this time Neeraj and I were looking at houses…..just the thought of searching was big on our minds…and now, we live in this beautiful house.

Time flies….Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hai had started on Star Plus, and now I have heard that it is going to end in July!

These days time flies faster for us…we don’t have enough time in the day, may it be for work purposes or our own personal life. We are always on the run, and it has just become that way. One thing that I really like is that Neeraj and I have started to take time to enjoy things that we love, such as playing tennis. We played last weekend, and we will be out on the courts tomorrow evening as well. We also go out and do other things as well such as bowling, miniature golf, etc.. You must enjoy to enjoy life.

At the same time, time flies when you are having the most fun. I am really enjoying the life that I am living, and sometimes I think it is going too fast for me. There are more things that I want to do in life, but at times I think that you know I am 25 years old, soon I will want to have a family, but at the same time, I want to work with Neeraj to open our own company. How will all this happen? Will events past right by me because time goes by quickly?

There are days that I wish if I could just stop time because I want to do more at the office or because I just want to enjoy the good times that I am having with my family and friends. But no, it just can’t happen in that way.

So I am taking it all in….just living it the way that I want to live it and as our motto remains: plan ahead to stay ahead.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

So after not much delay at all, Neeraj has received his biometrics appointment for next week. We don’t have to go far, which is good, because previously when we lived in Morton, we had to drive two and half hours to Schaumburg (a suburb of Chicago) for Neeraj’s biometrics appointment to get his Green Card.

Now that we have moved to St. Louis, we just have to go downtown, a mere 40 minutes, to get his biometrics done.

So far I have been surprised that this is going so quickly - and touch wood, the process will complete soon.

Once the biometrics are done, then we will wait to see whether they call us for an interview. If not, then Neeraj will get a new 10 year Green Card.

Let’s hope for the latter to happen.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.

So Sarkar Raj was playing this past weekend in STL. Of course it had my favorite actor, Abhishek Bachchan, so I really didn’t want to avoid missing this film. At the same time, Neeraj was too excited to see it because he loved the first one, Sarkar. Even though we had a jammed packed weekend with being in Chicago for a baby shower and then being in Morton, and needing to studying for the midterm exam tomorrow, we still made it over to the theatre in St. Charles to see this movie.

Now I am not going to talk about the story of the movie because you can find that on any other site. I really would like to talk about what Neeraj and I discussed about this movie once it was over. So if in case you have not seen the movie, you may want to stop here because I may give away the ending.

So I haven’t been tagged for……ever. The remember the days when we would do the tag in blogs more often but so many of my blog friends have moved on and have stopped blogging. Oh well…

Now that I have been tagged by Monty … here I go.

4 Jobs I’ve Had (Starting with the most recent)

4 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
Like Monty, I am an avid Bollywood fan, so the movies are only of the best.

4 Places I’ve Lived (starting with the present)

4 TV Shows I Like
I watch majority Indian serials, so if you are confused with the names that is why.

4 Favorite Foods

Mattar Paneer or any other paneer dish

Mixed vegetable with paratha… yum

4 Places I’d Rather Be

Home with my dear Neeru

Some beautiful place in India (no I am not talking about Delhi )

4 People I’m Tagging
I don’t think I know four people anymore that blog.

Alvida. Jai Mata Di.