min-myinnersoul

Just a reminder that today is last day to enter the bag giveaway. I will announce the winner tomorrow morning. Good luck to you all:o)

Yesterday was Martyr’s Day in India – the day when perhaps its most illustrious martyr, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated more than 60 years ago. It’s a day largely unnoticed by the Indian public . We have many “days” these days – Children’s day, Teacher’s day, Father’s day, Mother’s day, and so on. Many are the product of a commercial opportunity exploited. In the clutter, the not so commercialised days fall by the wayside. I suggest that Martyr’s Day deserves rather more a consideration. The supreme sacrifice for a country is the biggest call a nation can ever make to its citizens. The call comes to the military and, these days, unfortunately to political leaders. It is a supreme irony that Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace, fell victim to an assassin’s bullet. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi followed as martyrs – assassinated because of something they did in office. This post is however more on the military side of martyrdom. Every military man knows when he joins the military that

Much of the press on the calamitous state of the US auto industry centered around General Motors. Spare a thought for Ford, which has quietly done some amazing things. Ford was the only one among the Big Three that did not take the US government bailout. They also were the only one that did not go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And yesterday, they announced pretty good 2009 results. They made a profit of $ 2.7 billion in 2009. Yes, t-h-e-y m-a-d-e a p-r-o-f-i-t- i-n 2-0-0-9 ; one of the most brutal years for the auto industry. They gained market share in the US. Their fourth quarter volumes were up 26%. By any standards, an impressive performance. Sure the numbers hide some real worries (as they always do). Their main business of selling cars actually lost $1.4 bn in 2009. That loss was offset by their finance arm – Ford Motor Credit which made a profit of $1.9 bn. (just goes to show that taking a loan to buy a car is for suckers). But in Ford’s favour, in the fourth quarter, the car bus

I am so excited about this being my very first giveaway. At first, I wasn't sure if I wanted to get into it, but it's just too much fun not to. I made this bag yesterday. It's called the "I'll Have One of Everything" Bag. The pattern is from the Seams to Me book by Anna Maria Horner. My b.f.f. from high school is making(and selling) these, and I fell in love.(Her website is modernmommysewing.blogspot.com) This was the "trial" bag to see if I wanted to start making these as diapers bags for gifts. And the answer is...YEE-AH! Love them! Of course it isn't a full size diaper bag, but it will do the trick. The dimensions are from tip to tip 19 1/2", and from strap to bottom 20". The straps are braided...it's hard to tell from the picture. Now for the details...leave a comment. You don't have to be a "follower," but I would love it if you would:o) Leave a funny quote that you have heard recently or one that you always use..

I don't normally post more than one blog a day, but I had to put this on as soon as I finished because I was so excited about it. I had to take the kids to the doc yet again today, and on the way home they simultaneously dropped their sippy cups in the floor of the van. Well of course I couldn't reach them, so I got to listen to the poor pitiful cries of two thirsty babies...Then it hit me. I MUST do something about this. When I got home, I got online to see how much sippy cup holders were..the ones that the kids can reel in after they drop them, and they were around $10-$15 each. I have 2 kids...not happenin'. So I pulled out a notepad and started sketching and came up with a design that I thought would work and got to cutting. Here is a tutorial for all of you frustrated mothers whose lil' ones have the dropsy's at the wrong time too:o) What you will need: -Fabulous fabric(around a 1/2 yd?) Cut: *(1)12 1/2" x 11" square..I guess it really isn't

I have been waiting a while to post this one because I was searching for the perfect wall hanging to put S.R.'s letters on that I made her. E.'s letters came from Pottery Barn, and that was when we could afford to spend $10 per letter. Ain't happenin' now. Sister will just have to deal with moma-made letters:o) I found these letters at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents each. I found scrapbook paper that would coordinate with her room and busted out the Modge Podge(I used several different pages, but only posted the S). I am really starting to like this stuff! It took some time, and it was very tedious, but I am fairly pleased with the results. The edges were a little rough so I hot glued white ribbon all the way around, and then glued a strip on the back to make a bow to hang the letters from. The "Princess" sign came from Hobby Lobby as well and I got that beauty for $4.99. It was perfect in so many ways, but the main reason was it had 5 hooks...enough for all the let

If you’ve been within 100 miles of any business school, you have , no doubt, memorised from cover to cover, all the pages of Marketing Management by Philip Kotler. A doyen of marketing, Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management . His work was the standard text book 30 years ago, and still is. Many marketing hotshots are educated on his concepts and then blithely spend a lifetime ignoring it. Make a shoddy product, charge the moon for it, pour a fortune down the drain in advertising and then wonder why the product isn’t selling ! The zillions of dollars sloshing around the advertising industry is testament to this “Marketing Myopia”, to borrow a phrase from another seminal piece by Ted Levitt from a few decades ago. One shining exception to this is Apple. They anticipate (and sometimes even create) consumer needs and meet it brilliantly. To hell with all the rest. Take the case of the iPhone. Absolutely br

This is our "new to us" table and chairs. I bought this set off of Craig's List for $50 right before we moved into our new house. I loved the lines of the table and chairs, and could see the potential in it. The hubs was not happy about having yet another project ahead of him, but now that it is FINALLY complete, we are both extremely happy with it. He sanded the top down, but only slightly and we painted the whole set this mint'ish green. Once that was done, the top just wasn't cutting it, so he re-sanded only the top, and stained it. I distressed the chairs, hubs polyed it and I covered the seats with the same fabric that I used for the valances. We are very pleased with it. Now all it needs is a little accessorization and someday a small church pew on the back side and it will be able to seat 6 on a regular basis. I think we make a pretty good team:o) Before...see that stank nasty fabric on the seats?? I removed one covering and then passed it on to the hubs. I

Its difficult to get all senti with concrete. But then office buildings are no ordinary slabs of concrete. They are a piece of history in themselves. They have seen numerous people come and go, they have seen victories and defeats, they have seen joyful moments and sad occasions. They deserve a farewell when its their own time to go. Today a corporate giant moves away from a legendary building, which has been its home for 46 years, to a new home. For most people its just another office move. Perhaps they are perturbed by the longer (or shorter) commute for them. Perhaps they are more concerned with the parking. Some are, no doubt, measuring whether the size of their room (or cubicle) is as big as what they had in the previous place. This writer is not part of this move. But that hasn’t stopped him from waxing nostalgic – my good friend Ravi accused me of being a die hard romantic in his comment in my previous post. I’m still tickled pink by that sobriquet, and hence continuing in that

Goodbye Zhang ; as the title says , this is a farewell post for Zhang Dan, my wonderful Chinese teacher. This week, I had my last class with Zhang, a moment tinged with some sadness. For she leaves next week to study in the UK. She hadn’t expected this to happen, but an opportunity came and it all worked out. So off she goes. Some months ago, I had gathered courage to attempt to learn Chinese. I was met by a young, earnest girl, who was to be my teacher. She was a post graduate student at the university and this was her first attempt to teach Chinese to a waiguoren (foreigner). Now the Chinese word for teacher is laoshi; the prefix lao stands for old age. It is assumed that the teacher will be an elderly person and the student somebody much younger. But here the tables were turned- she is a young girl and I am (ahem) just a tad older ! But what a teacher she proved to be. I’ve rarely seen anyone who’s so obviously born to the profession. She loves teaching she says and it showed every

It had to come. The backlash against the banks was long overdue after the mayhem of the financial crisis of last year. It took the Massachusetts election result, where Ted Kennedy’s seat was won by a Republican (yes the liberal bastion of the US actually voted Republican) to trigger it. This blogger is a staunch and unabashed votary of free trade, capitalism and the efficiency of markets. This post, which might seem to back a populist move is actually championing the cause of capitalism, although it might appear at first sight to be arguing against it. The fundamental problem of the financial crisis was the too big to fail theory. The institutions in trouble were too big to be allowed to go bust. Therefore, however crazy their actions were, they had to be bailed out , primarily by the US government, for the consequences of not doing so would have been worse. This must not be allowed to be repeated. Nobody should be allowed to become so big that irrespective of whatever they do, they ca

I found these two little beauties at the Goodwill as well. I just keep comin' at ya with these Goodwill finds, and YES, I got them all in one day!! These cutey pies were $7.99 each. They are Target brand and still had the original price tag on them of $59.99 each(yes, I scored majorly!!) The fabric was a little on the dingy side, but everything was in good working order, the piping was still in good shape, so off to deconstructing I went. It was sooooooooooo much easier than when I pulled apart the chair to recover(see pic of living room curtains, and it's the yellow one with stripes). It took less than an hour to pull the 24,000 staples out of them. I used some more of the green and purple toile from dear Ms. Stephanie to recover them, and now I'm all coordinated and stuff;o) I painted the legs black b/c I still have 3/4 of a gallon left, so anything else that comes in the house to be painted will eventually be painted black:o) I put them upstairs in the bonus room in fron

I keep writing about my trip to the Goodwill store up north, and wish that I could go back every week! That place was awesome! While I was there, I kept passing by this coffee table, and thinking, "do I really need this?" Well of course I do! My first thought was to make it over as a table for the kids to put their blocks, train tracks, and lincoln logs on, but then a selfish thought hit me...I want it for my living room! I took it to the register thinking that I was paying $14.99 for it, which I thought was a pretty good deal, especially since it didn't have the glass panes in it(btw, I HATE glass top coffee tables). The lady said, "That will be $7.49", WHAT???? Holy Cow, I was soooo excited! Got it home and the hubs was pumped about it too. He made a special trip to Lowes for a nice birch top(expensive, I know), and put it on all in the same night. I painted it the next day, and now it resides in my living room. Before...(the top will be used in another projec

I thought that I was going to finish all those curtains in one day. HA! Fat chance. I did get the curtains done in the living room and I love 'em! They make the room look complete. Thank goodness. There was almost a catastrophe though. As I started sewing this beautiful fabric, I realized that when you have two windows, you generally want to have 2 panels per window...duh! I only cut 2 panels. Then it hit me, do I have enough fabric???? Just barely(sigh), and I had to do some piecing to make it work, but you won't be able to see it because I am that good...well, not really. That panel ended up behind the chair:o) I started the kitchen curtains, but was getting tired and started to make a mess of things, so I called it quits. I am really pleased with how the living room turned out! The clock in this pic was a Goodwill find. All the old ladies were eyeing it with jealousy. One said, "My what a pretty clock you've grabbed." And I thought to myself,"Oh yeah lady,

After searching for all the perfect fabrics, I have finally gotten everything I need, and I must sit down at my machine and GET BIZZAY! I have around 60 yards of fabric just sitting around in the guest bedroom waiting to be turned into something beautiful. My windows have begged and pleaded with me to clothe them. They are tired of being nekked, and frankly I'm tired of them being nekked too:o) So today is the big day. My poor children don't know what's in store for them today. Mommy is going to be neglectful in the hopes of finishing 8 window treatments in one day...can it be done??? Probably not, but it's worth a shot. I also have to paint a coffee table I bought at Goodwill in Fayetteville yesterday for $7.50. I am beyond pumped about this table!! It is 3 ft. by 3 ft. HUGE! Love. love, love it! It's going in the living room, and now we will have a proper place to prop our feet up. We also got the table and chairs refinished, and I will post that as soon as I repl

Its difficult to reconcile to the way the Kraft Cadbury deal finally ended (the deal got done today). Not the outcome – M&A transactions like this happen all the time. But the way it happened makes me reflect if unbridled capitalism is really a good thing. My ire is on the hedge funds – they are no different to a herd of vultures which circle over an animal that’s about to die. When there’s a whiff of a M&A transaction, the hedge funds pile in to buy the shares of the target, hoping to make a killing . This is what happened in the Alcon transaction about which I posted here . Somebody tell me how what happened in the Cadbury case is reasonable by any yardstick. Here’s what happened. When the first whiff of a possible takeover of Cadbury was in the air, the hedge funds bought heavily into Cadbury shares. They then drummed up noise that Kraft’s bid was inadequate and it had to raise the price. They kept making this noise and were prepared to play brinksmanship. Till virtually yes

Caveat Emptor , or let the buyer beware, is a fundamental law in property buying and selling. The buyer is expected to make enquiries and be sure that he is getting what he thinks he is getting. Once the sale is done, he cannot moan about defects that he subsequently finds out. These days the principle is better deployed in financial transactions. Banks and finance companies spin a complex web around even seemingly simple products. For the mathematically challenged, like yours truly, this is a landmine waiting to explode. Take the case of an apparently new innovation – teaser home loans. These are loans where the interest rate is fixed at a very attractive rate for a pre determined period and then made floating plus margin thereafter. Buyers are enticed by the low initial rate and don’t realise the consequences of a subsequent high floating rate. Once hooked by the teaser, they are sunk. Buyers certainly deserve their misfortune if they jump into something blindly. If 2+2 is a very co

Before: After: I got some fabulous fabric from my fabu-lo-so friend Stephanie, and had to make curtains with it. Love, love, love toile fabric. It could be in the nastiest color and I would still try to make something great out of it...well, maybe not. Anyway, I thought it would go perfectly in the bonus room b/c there is a lot of black and white, but I couldn't figure out what color I wanted to coordinate with it, and then Stephanie offered her left over fabric. Aaaaawesome! Did I mention how much I love this fabric? Anyway, I made a simple pattern out of some freezer paper(my new found love) and got to sewing away. These curtains would have taken around 2 hours if there hadn't been numerous interruptions:o) I love how they turned out, but they do seem a little naked. Waiting for the perfect trim to show it's lovely self, and I will probably just hot glue it on...the lazy man's way of sewing. There was a ton of fabric left over, so I will definitely be making pillows a

A dear friend posted in her blog, a couple of days ago, something that brought a lump to my throat. She’s a brilliant professional – great academic track record (a national gold medalist, no less), top drawer performer, highly regarded in her company. And yet she faced the same choice that confronts every Indian career woman – family or career. As 90% of Indian woman do, she chose family. She passed up an opportunity for career advancement. Others applauded her for her “sacrifice”. But as you can imagine, her heart was heavy. And she wrote this wistful post, which continues to tug my heart. I won’t link her post, as she may not want it to be too public, but you can more or less guess what it would be. Another dear friend, wrote this sometime ago. The blogosphere, and terra firma, is full of such situations. This is something that confronts every single Indian middle class woman who has a career interest. In many cases, their husbands are incredibly supporting. They are not MCPs – the

When we decided to build our house, we knew that the bonus room would be the kids "domain." We made sure that everything in there was going to be kid friendly. I wanted to have a space for them to color and do crafts, and this corner was the perfect space to set up shop. My parents gave us my grandmother's table and chairs(Thank you Papa & Gia), and also tons of colored paper. My children, bless their little souls, are little tornadoes at times, and thus the BEFORE picture. I had to come up with some quick ideas or I was going to go nutso with the disorganization. The pencils and markers are always strown, and even though they had a basket to put everything in, it wasn't pretty and it had holes in it. I made these from veggie cans. Just glued scrapbook paper to them, and voila. Instant pencil and marker containers. I had this basket which was formerly a home to all my hair stylist products, but it seems that it served a better purpose by housing all the kids color

Inflation, of any sort, is bad. Some stability in prices, is necessary for orderly economic activity and for growth. Countries which have experienced hyper inflation recall it with absolute horror. But the most awful form of inflation is when there is huge inflation in food prices. In non food products, one can curtail demand if prices rise. But what do you do with food ? After all, you have to eat. In the last few months, food prices in India have gone through the roof. If you are living in India, you are experiencing it first hand. If you are abroad, you would have surely heard about it. The official food price inflation figure is 20%. In many key food items, the inflation has been much higher than that. The first hint came in pulses, a vegetarian Indian’s main source of protein. A kilo of arhar dhal (pulses) has apparently touched the unbelievable level of Rs 100/kg. Then came vegetables. Onions at Rs 35/kg, potatoes at Rs 40/kg, and so on. Sugar is now at Rs 50/kg. Name a food ite

Well we got it hung last night, and I LOOOOOOOOOOVE it!! I clipped the butterflies on the petals and voila! Beautimous!!! Even the hubs was giving me props. We used a regular hook, one that was a little beefier(is that a word?) than a cup hook. Now to keep S.R.'s sweet little hands off of it, and we will be in business;o) Just a few more things to add to her room, and then I can move onto E.'s room.

I am so super pumped about this canopy. I sooo copied it from PBK, and am very happy with how well it turned out. S.R.'s room is going to be so saaweet when the hubs gets this one hung. It was "fairly" simple to assemble, but may be for the intermediate sewer, as there were a few tight seams. PBK sells this for $99(w/o shipping) and I was able to accomplish this bad boy for about $45. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. I found some cute little butterflies at Hobby Lobby that were 50% off this week. They will be "perched" on the canopy. I already have the paint color picked out for her room, but I still have to purchase it. Looking forward to finishing up S.R.'s room. It's sooo girly, and I am sooo in love with it!!

Sunday we finally made it back to church. So, S.R. got to wear her pretty new dress that I made for her. She looked sooo cute! The only problem was that she didn't have the proper hair bow to match...no good. I ran across some ribbon in my scrap book materials that I also used in my hanging folder, and thought that it would be a perfect match. I was right! It took 5 minutes to make, super simple. I have made hair bows in the past, and just wasn't too thrilled with them, but this one I loved. Can't wait to make more:o)

Don’t cry for me Argentina, could very well be refrain of Martin Redrado, the governor of the central bank of Argentina. He was dismissed by the President Cristina Fernandez a couple of days back, only for the courts to reinstate him and rule the President’s action unconstitutional. At heart is the issue of the independence of the Central Bank. In many countries, including Argentina, the Central Bank is supposed to be independent of the government. This enables it to follow the right, and long term, stable monetary policy without political interference. Governments don’t like it as they like central banks to do what they want them to do. The problem in Argentina is that Cristina Fernandez would like to use the reserves of the central bank to pay down the debt of the government. The central bank is refusing to do this. So she thought she could sack the governor and replace him with somebody more pliable. Its rebounded on her because of the court’s decision. The problem is always the te

Your name is something you are born with ; unless you take the trouble of changing it later on in life. The vast majority of us grow to like our name and keep it. But consider the unfortunate few, who have been named rather quixotically by their parents. Why on earth parents do that is not clear, but do it, they sometimes. Imagine if you are named Adolf Hitler or Idi Amin. Thankfully there’s a law in many countries preventing parents from giving their children obviously crazy names. That, of course didn’t prevent a certain Indian politician from naming his son Stalin. Considering that knowledge of recent Russian history is not the strong point of the place he lives in, we’ll let that pass. But what about Justin Case or Barb Dwyer. Or Stan Still or Barry Cade. Or amongst the ladies Anna Sasin or Rose Bush . Or Jo King or Carrie Oakey. Sometimes your name gets you into trouble because of your job. Susan Frame is a perfectly acceptable name. She then married a Robert Mee and became Sus

I bought a ton of Paper Crafts Magazines last summer for $3 at a yard sale(yes, almost all of my possessions come from a yard sale). I started flipping thru them b/c I wanted some great gift ideas and I always find some in there. I did find a cute idea for a recipe box that I will be making as soon as I can get back to Hobby Lobby for supplies, but I also found this cute idea to keep up with my craft ideas. It is a hanging folder made from scrapbooking materials. It took 30 minutes to put together, and was virtually free since I already had everything I needed. It has 4 different pockets for the different size papers I might need to store. I wanted to make a magnetic board, but didn't have the supplies to make it, so this will hold me over until then:o) Something colorful to look at until I get brave enough to start painting murals in my craft closet/room:o)

A curious side show to the Alcon deal that I blogged about in my previous post is the treatment of minority shareholders. You may recall that Novartis bought 52% of the shareholding in Alcon, from Nestle, at $180 per share in cash. It had already held 25% bought from Nestle earlier. So it now has 77%. The balance 23% is held by minority shareholders as Alcon is listed in the US. Novartis has now offered $153 dollars to the minority shareholders, in its own shares (not cash as was paid to Nestle). The minority shareholders are crying foul. Alcon is a Swiss based company and dictated by Swiss Corporate law. Swiss law does not require minority shareholders to be paid the same amount as the majority shareholders in an acquisition. Most other countries in the world have this provision. Switzerland does not. That’s why Novartis can do what its trying to do. On first glance this would seem to be an abuse of minority shareholder rights. But wait a moment. Its not so black and white. The “min

Anytime I start running out of ideas for crafts, I always call upon Martha to get the creative juices flowing again. The kids got a play kitchen from Santa this year, and they have really enjoyed playing with it. However, there just wasn't enough food for it. Luckily, ole Martha was thinking for me and had instructions on her website for a felt cherry pie. Super cute and super easy. She also included a link to another website where they make felt food and sell the patterns. I had so much fun making these, and the kids LOVE them. They especially love the sandwich. I had to keep reminding both of them that we "pretend" to eat it:o) I plan on making pizza and possibly a cake later on.

My kids ended up with way too many toys for Christmas this year, and we are very thankful to all of those who contributed;o), but one of the cutest things that S.R. got was monogrammed wash cloths from her sweet Aunt A. A girl from church just had a beautiful baby boy, and I was trying to figure out what I could make for her, and I remembered the wash cloths. They were super simple to make and I was able to try out some new appliques on my machine that I hadn't used yet. I made a quick trip to Dollar Tree b/c I figured they would have hand towels and wash cloths. The wash cloths were a little big, so I went for the hand towels and was able to cut them down to get two wash cloths per towel. Since I bought 2 towels, I decided to use the other for a burp cloth. I am so happy with the way things turned out! Can't wait to give them to the new mommy:o)

I found a pair of sheer curtains at a yard sale a while back, and didn't know quite what to do with them. My mother mentioned to me that she saw some really cute curtains in PBK's magazine, and thought I might like them. Hence Phase 1 with the pink gingham curtains. That's where the sheers became Phase 2. I thought about using my 3rd love(following of course my husband(#1), children(#2))to embroider butterflies all over them, but evidently my machine was hungry. It ate one of the sheers. So after much contemplation, I decided to use some applique butterflies that I purchased from ebay ages ago for some unknown project. They were so simple to apply, and my machine was very cordial to the ever so delicate sheer. I am really pleased on how they turned out. Now, I just have to make sure that E & S.R. don't try to pick them off:o)

S.R.'s Christmas present from me. A little bag to take to church with goodies to keep her sweet little hands busy. It has an I Spy bag, and a crayon roll of which I "borrowed" the idea from another blogger. I also made one for E. with Transformer's fabric. They both seemed to really like it.

A dress I made the other day for S.R. I am so excited about this dress. We have to get everyone well so she can wear it to church!

Phase one of S.R.'s curtains. Not exactly sure what phase two will be yet:o)

There are some companies famously long term in their outlook. Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is a famous example. Another company in the same league is Nestle. Nestle , as everyone knows, is a food company. However, the way they dealt with two pieces of their portfolio that has nothing to do with food, is very demonstrative of their long term approach. One is Alcon, an eyecare business. In 1977, Nestle acquired Alcon as part of a diversification outside their traditional food business. They bought this at that time of $280 m. Run professionally for two decades and more. In 2002, they decided to start selling it off ; so they floated 23% of the company for $33 per share. They were subject to wild criticism from the pundits for not selling off the whole company. To their credit, they didn’t listen to all the noise. Then in 2008 they sold another 25% of the stake to Novartis for $143 a share. Yesterday, Novartis bought out the balance stake for $181 per share. So bought in 1977 for $

In India, regional disparities in growth and poverty alleviation are well known. In general, the more western and southern a state is, it is much better off. And the more eastern and northern the state is, it is in doldrums. So says conventional wisdom. Well, not any longer. The economic growth of states over the last five years has just been published, and has been seized by the media and reported widely. So pardon me, if you have read this before. But its such a compelling story that it needs telling. There were two states that grew by 11% , each year, over the last five years. One of them is no surprise, Gujarat. But the other will take your breath away. Its Bihar. Bihar was, jointly with Gujarat, the fastest growing state in India over the last five years. Pause for a moment and reflect on this number. Eleven percent per annum GDP growth. It’s a stunning performance by any standard, anywhere in the world. Breathtaking. And Bihar is not the lone surprise. Uttaranchal & Orissa g

Man is a territorial animal. His natural preference is to live with the group that he belongs to. But for two reasons, people choose to live away from their natural communities. The first, and the biggest, reason is economic. The second is political. I would guess that 90% of migrants are economic – they move to earn more money; to have a better life. Even where people ascribe other reasons, the real underlying cause is economic. The Economist , my favourite magazine, put it beautifully. A journalist was covering the regular anti America rallies in Iran. Death to America, Death to America, the chants were going on. A protester paused in mid chant to ask the journalist – “can you get me a green card” ! Earlier in the week, I had posted about the The Economist’s brilliant article on “being foreign”, here . This post is my personal view on being an expat. The sheer experience of being an expat is enormously enriching, both professionally and personally. Professionally, it is an experience