Travel, Life, Reset

                 No Time To Stand And Stare?      Can you remember the time when you thought time stood still? It has been almost two decades since I felt time stood still. Kids in Kathmandu Valley used to get 50 days of winter vacation, known as "Minpachas bida." Our mother used to send us to the village where my grandparents lived. So imagine we had to come up with things to keep us busy with no TV, phone, or any other means of modern means of communication and entertainment and no running water in the house and electricity. Our pastime would be to go to forests and fields and go out and play. I used to help Gradma do house chores, fetch water, feed cattle, and wash dishes. In the evening, I read "Swasthani Katha,"  a religious book that people gathered, read, and listened to for an entire month. That book is still ingrained in my brain because I must have read it at least  20 times, cover to cover. We all kids used...

 Small Things Big Impact!        Have you ever thought that some of the things you have learned from some people, the advice you got from random people, or how some people carried themselves always stick with you forever? I always remember my manager's advice when I started my career in the United States. My job entailed a lot of verbal communication with various people throughout the day, especially on the telephone. One day there were some issues, and in the end, we figured out it was due to miscommunication. She advised me that to communicate professionally, clearly, and efficiently; I need to write down the things I need to speak to get all the pertinent information. She told me that writing things down will also eliminate the chances of being misconstrued because we might use the wrong words when we do not write down the things. Writing content in advance will also help sound confident (no need to think of words, less pause). To this date, I use that ad...

  Where is home?                                                                                                       Shyamala Shiwakoti     When people ask me how long I have been living abroad? In my mind, it's always around ten years. Last week, I did the math. It's way more than ten years. Growing up, I always heard this conversation about people going abroad and studying. My father went to Canada in 1993, and when he returned, I remember he brought me a wristwatc...

                                                        Women & Money      Lately, there has been a lot of discussion around pay parity. Some studies have shown that women in the Western world women make $ 0.7  for every $1 a man makes for the same job. There is little data for other parts of the world, but pay parity is much more likely. For centuries, women have been doing farm work, all household work, and raising kids, which takes up as much work as a full-time job, if not more. And now most of us are doing all that plus full-time or part-time employment. Sometimes it feels overwhelming, and I do not even have kids. So why do women even need to make money? As I grow older, I have started to think about financial security and the value of money in our lives. What does money bring to my life, and why must I make my own mon...