So...Obama won and became the 44'th President of The United States

Just in case you've been living under a rock for the past couple of months, Obama won the race for the presidency (against McCain) and became the 44'th President of The United States. It is hard to describe my elation for this outcome, but let me try. People have already said enough about what this means for the country, it's people and the rest of the world, so I won't repeat all that. I will just talk about my feelings.

I went over to my cousin's place on the night of the 4'th (the results didn't start coming in until 5am on the 5'th our time) 'cause I don't have a TV. I was planning on staying up all night watching CNN but ended up sleeping for 4 hours until 4am in the morning. That is when I started following the news, and as CNN started projecting states for Obama, my heart started jumping beats. I don't remember the correct sequence of events, but as soon as Pennsylvania was called for Obama followed (or proceeded) by Iowa and Ohio, everybody knew that was it. But I still didn't celebrate, lest I jinx it. It was only after California and Oregon were called for Obama (at about 8am my time) did I finally shake the hands of and hug my cousin and sister-in-law. It was momentous, it was exhilerating, it was unique and yes, it was emotional.

The first 3 make sense, but let me explain the last adjective I used above. When I say emotional, I meant I wanted to cry. Tears did well up, but I pushed them back - I didn't want to look like a pussy in front of the audience (my cousin and my sis-in-law :)). There were plenty of reasons for this - first black man to be president, first truly liberal guy to get there, finally a democrat back in that seat, the knowledge that Palin would not come within 100 ft. of the oval office etc. etc. But the main reason for my response was something else - I wanted to cry 'cause this was the first time I picked a winner. All the other times, my choices for President lost. This time, he won. And it's no small thing - I was supporting Obama from the start - from the day he stood up outside the state house in Illinois to announce his candidacy (and actually from before that). It was this feeling of pride, this feeling of accomplishment, this fulfillment of a dream that got to me. There was an amazing soliloquy delievered by Ray Romano in the show Everybody Loves Raymond, and while I don't remember the exact words, it's crux was that when one of your dreams, a dream that you thought was so distant to border on the unreal, comes true, you start taking your other dreams more seriously. That's what happened for me. When it all started, I was pretty sure I was supporting a loser - after all he was Black, with relatively less experience, a well educated and articulate man, etc. All ingredients for a great President, but all qualities that would work against him. Him winning meant nothing is too hard to achieve, too distant a dream when you go after it with a plan and a focuses approach, and work really hard to achieve the goal you set out for. 

What remains to be seen now is what he makes of it. He needs to do good, else his whole aura that he can actually change things, and bring about a better future will fade. He has a nice team to help him, and that added to the fact that he himself is a pretty smart guy leads me to be optimistic about his chances. Let's hope I'm right here too.

My last day at Agilent (and my comeback to blogging).

So it's been a while. Lot's has happened since the last time I posted an entry here. Most importantly, Obama won the race for the presidency of the US and became the 44'th and the first black president of the United States. In this time, I also visited Goa (twice), saw a close friend get married (a bit scary - we're all coming of age), saw the US go into recession, lost my partner (who shall remain anonymous, on his request) to the economy (or something else - I don't want to think too much about it), gave the GMAT - twice 'cause the first time around I got only 640 (second time around, I got 700), and celebrated my 24'th birthday (in-fact on the same day as my second GMAT exam). But, I also resigned my job at Agilent (one I've had for the past 15 months). My last day was today. I'm excited, not scared, optimistic, not pessimistic and interested in looking forward to what happens in the next few months.

Resigning from my job was long in the making. I had thought of it way back in august/september while discussing with R about our plans for out startup. It took me almost 6 months between first thinking about it and finally leaving my job. I guess there was some apprehension with the economy the way it was and all that. I also postponed my plans more than once 'cause of R and now even though he's no longer taking the plunge with me, I still feel this was the right choice for me. The fact is, I was no longer enjoying the work I was doing at Agilent - it was mundane, repetitive and sparse. Sure, there were moments of excitement and exhileration, but they were few and far between for me to justify staying on.

What was (and still is) surprising to me was how my folks supported me in this decision. I was not expecting it, so it came as a very pleasant surprise. As I have mentioned earlier, they have not always been the most supportive of my aspirations or decisions (and this is not me bitching, this is me appreciating them for showing me a different path, giving me choices I had not thought of) so them supporting me fully meant a lot to me.

As for my plans from here on out, I'm going to finish off my grad school applications before next weekend, which is when I fly out to Malaysia. Once there, I plan on working full time on making GovCheck a reality. The Indian General Elections are coming around so this should be a good time to launch a site like this. Additionally, it will be a good test for the idea - if it can't gain traction during an election cycle, then probably this idea isn't something that can be turned into a profitable business. I'll see how things go in the few months after the site's launch. If I feel it is succesfull (and I don't have a clear definition of what does succesfull mean), I will punt on grad school and continue working on it. If not, I'll go to grad school. And if I don't get into any of the schools I apply to, I will then start looking for jobs again, though I'm really really really hoping it doesn't come to that.

So that is an update for the day. I hope to take up blogging regularly again, but let's see if I can stick to that. All I can say is, right now, I'm excited for my future. I hope my efforts bear some fruit.