Ladies Night Out

March 23rd 2012 was a dream come true for six ladies Varsha, Viji, Anita, Rachana, Mukta and Me. We were going on a first ladies night out trip to Vegas, without our kids or husbands. Although it was going to be a one night trip, we were really excited about the fact we would be away from reality for that one night.

We started looking for tickets and found a good deal with allegiant airlines. Just $91 dollars for round trip from Phoenix to Vegas. We could have saved $20 had we not selected our seats...but oh well we wanted to sit together so we did not bother about saving.

After almost one month of discussions on what we will wear and what our agenda would be during the trip would be, we were finally done with our shopping and we were all set for our wonderful trip. We had decided to watch Zumanity at the New York New York Hotel

and then probably hit the dance clubs.

Mukta offered to drive us to the airport, we parked our car, took the shuttle, got our boarding passes, went thru the quick security line just to realize that the flight was almost an hour late. This was the beginning of our trip. We started worrying if we would be able to make it to the show on time. Being women we immediately came up with a plan and distributed the tasks amongst the 3 pairs. 2 girls would get the tickets for the show, 2 would check in to the hotel and the other 2 would get dinner.

We reached vegas, and hurriedly took a limo ride and as planned each one of us completed our tasks. Dressing up was fun but the most fun was digging our fingers into the mexican food that we got for which we had no plastic ware. So we utilized our fingers to the utmost.

Zumanity was obviously a topless show with sex as the theme. Being Indian women, it made us a little uncomfortable, watching people perform acrobatics in semi nude attire, but oh well this was part of being in Vegas wasn't it? We hit the Palms and $40 let us into 4 dance floors "PlayBoy", "Moon","Rain" and GhostBar". The dance clubs were crowded, and the dance floor space equalled to our living room space, but it had a lot of people jiving to the music.

We wanted to dance, but we realized there was not enough space to do a single bollywood step that we knew. It dawned on us that more than dancing people were seducing each other. As my friend put it " Are these people dancing? or are they saying where is the bum, where is the bum that I can fit in"....it was just too hilarious.

After a great night of clubbing we caught a quick nap and were ready to get to the airport. Once again Allegiant flight got delayed and this time it got delayed by 8 hours. We were stuck at the airport!! The allegiant staff were the rudest and they kept giving the most unreliable updates about the flight. The entire passengers were upset and we tried to get some reasoning from them which was truly not possible. Finally they gave us an eight dollar voucher to eat at the airport. We were totally upset and we booked another flight via US Airways (All that for saving money on flight )....but oh well we got to spend one more night at Vegas!!

This time we checked in at the Venetian. The crowd had class. Everyone was dressed well. We checked in and realized we just had one outfit...for some time we tried to fit into each others clothes, but we landed up wearing the same outfit as the previous night....This was Vegas, nobody would know.

The next dance club we hit was the Tao. Before we entered the club, our friend Mukta said "Girls please don't leave me tonight as I don't have my contacts and I am not wearing my glasses". We held her hand tight and said, we wouldn't leave her. As usual the club was crowded. More than dancing we were being pushed from one direction to the other. After being at the airport for 8 hours and now being pushed around for more than 3 hours, I wanted to go back to the room. Every time I would ask these ladies if anyone wanted to go to the room, they would all smile and continue dancing. Soon I realized they couldn't hear a word I was saying. I caught Anita by her hand and asked if she wanted to leave, and we both asked Mukta. since we didn't get any response we pushed off.

After few drinks the girls were having a good time. Mukta wanted to get back to the room. Finally she managed to get the room keys and headed towards the room. Unfortunately, Venetian has the same room numbers in all the floors. We were on the 7t floor but that was information mukta missed. Now what happed for the next couple of hours is like a scene from the movie. Mukta was totally lost without her contacts or glasses. She went about knocking in all the doors as she couldn't read the signs. It was almost 5 am and the clubs shut down so the rest of the gang was heading to the room when they saw poor Mukta still looking for directions to get to the room. They screamed "Mukta" and all of them hugged each other.
The whole night we laughed about this incident (at the same time thanking god nothing weird happened). This was a trip to remember and brought us one step closer. I am amazed at Mukta as she did not show any signs of anger for being left alone despite her polite request.
This was an awesome Girls' Night Out...Looking forward to the next one!

Education...is it a money making scam?

Today I talked to a friend of mine who wanted to do her Masters and had been preparing for her GMAT for the past few months. She dedicated all her time just so she could get admissions to pursue her dream of gaining more knowledge and being a part of a University where she would get her education.

My friend was supposed to have completed her GMAT today, so when i called her she sounded depressed and sad as she did not make the test. I know in my heart how much it meant to her and how hard she worked for it. It is not that she was not capable of doing the test, it was stress and nervousness that killed this dream. Seriously does one have to go thru this type of hurdle just to get an education?

When googling the purpose of GMAT this is what i found " The main purpose of the GMAT is to show that you are a quick thinker, can work well under time pressure, and will be capable of handling the academic workload you are going to face at business school."

I also read that one can give the exam again in 31 days. So if they mess up the first time, and do it right the second time, does it mean they have become quick thinkers and are ready for pressure in 31 days? Or does this system just exists so that institutes can make money? I read they charge $250 to take the test.

Isn't it the right of a human being to be educated? Should this type of test stop a person from their right of gaining knowledge? So what is the purpose of this exam? Is it there, to get a kick out of your self esteem? To stop everyone from getting educated?

I sometimes find it very hard to understand these systems. Why are we stingy in sharing knowledge and making this world an enlightened place to live in? Do we feel we will lose our value if everyone possessed the same kind of knowledge....may be it is a matter of bread and butter, social status,etc....but if the world were to end and we had to re start everything again, we would be better off if all of us had equal knowledge cause, what are the chances of only educated people living??? Something to think about!!

Ignorance is Bliss

I went to drop Melina to her day care. All the kids were playing and they were very happy to see Melina. They gave each other a hug as usual and started talking. As i was about to leave her teacher came over to me and said " i don't know how Melina is going to take it, as today is her best friend(Shreya's) last day.

I looked at them and they were busy chatting. Shreya and Melina have been friends since Melina was 10 months old(now she is three). They looked so similar as kids, same color, same curly hair that sometimes i used to get confused.

The Admin lady came over and said, there are cookies for Shreya's last day. Then i heard Melina squeal in delight "Shreya your last day cookies are here, we are going to eat all of it!!!" The cookies meant so much more than the purpose of the cookies. I just felt sometimes "Ignorance is Bliss."

I am sure they are going to miss each other like crazy and i just felt so emotional to be a part of my kids "first parting with a friend moment". I bet each parent must have gone thru similar experience.... kids are indeed so special.