baby stuff

last week i had completed some of the coding work but there are many areas that remain unclear. the weekend was hectic to say the least. on saturday we had our first parental class. well, i am not sure why they call it parental classes as they taught us nothing about parenting. it was more like a class aimed at preparing women for delivery.

they showed us things that will come in handy from week 36 onwards. the positions pregnant women should adopt that would assist the baby getting into the optimum position. the bloodcurdling part - the labour itself - was shown to us as a *movie*. there was a bit of scare-mongering with the midwives telling us that it is an average of 12 hours in labour if it is our first child. how painful is it really ? well, the midwife explains colourfully: "open your mouth as wide as you possibly can until you can feel it stretch and clip at the sides - amplify that 100 times and there you know how labour feels"

what the heck ? i thought midwives are supposed to ease the pain by telling women that it is just 1 day in their lives and it is just those 2 or 3 hours of stage 2 that women need to overcome. to be fair, we all discussed merits and demerits of some of the pain killer options women have at their disposal. we had a total of 14 people attending the course, 7 pairs exactly. i would have expected women to ask most of the questions while in reality it turned out i was the one who was posing most of the questions. how embarrassing ?

we have to buy some shower curtains - to make sure there is no mess when monica's water breaks. i need to keep an emergency pack in my car all the time - toiletries, change of clothes and such. we went to babies'r'us on sunday. we have a catalogue in our possesion now. monica and i are going through it to decide what to buy. we are thinking about converting the smallest room in our house to a baby room. a cot, pram, car seat, clothing, decorations, plush toys etc. are some of the things we need to buy in the next few weeks. well, nothing more to write. we have at least 2 classes scheduled every week between now and december.

8 more weeks really .. counting down impatiently.

the 4 year curse

bambino's 85 yr old curse might be over but bush jr's 4 year old despotism seems to be gathering steam for a further 4 years. on the optimistic side, this would be his final term.

i stayed up late until 03:00 am to catch some of the election coverage - from CNN, BBC and TV5 [france]. i will come back to this but first i need to bring to your attention something called virtual voting. it is a london based non political, non governmental organisation that has been requesting site visitors to cast their votes on the US presidential election. it was a landslide for kerry with 77% of all the votes going in his favour. even nader got 14%, ostensibly, while bush jr deservedly got his 7 odd percentage points.

it shows how bush jr is truly beheld - OUTSIDE of the usa that is. however, i begin to marvel how different american people really can be ? can it be so that bush's approval rating is 7% worldwide [excluding the usa] while at least a simple majority of americans think bush jr. is the real deal ? even more mystifying: CNN reports, 54% of all men voted for bush jr. while 54% of all women voted for kerry! for the first time in my life i feel ashamed being a man ! a confounding note, why do i agonise much about who is elected ? i neither have voting privileges [thankfully] nor am i an american.

on why i like kerry: he speaks clearly, answers only to the questions posed, gets his numbers right almost all the time and candidly discloses that war would be his last alternative. now, that takes fortitude to say [not caring about whether it would crucify him eventually] especially in a land where an overwhelming majority of its citizens often see nothing wrong in poking their noses where they don't belong.

journalism is a powerful trade. journalists have the aptitude to influence absolutely *anyone*. the reports from CNN were decidedly pro-bush jr while BBC's were fairly neutral - i suppose BBC had no motive to sway either side. at this moment bush jr is leading 254 to 252. i pray and hope kerry carries ohio. but i know it would be wishful thinking. i am going to refrain from saying it but i am afraid i know who actually will win.

if kerry loses, the world collectively would lose. if bush jr wins, he would have won *simply* because he played his "war on terror" card brilliantly well.

HRH general el presidente musharaf is smiling ! if bush jr wins, i heard, musharaf has plans to go to mecca, offer his thanks and tattoo an image of bush jr on his arse. hey ! that may be one reason why bush should lose :-) - avoid having his face on musharaf's arse ?