Control #27

As I was walking out of gym after Zumba class yesterday, I noticed my instructor-friend put down the number 27 in a column next to her sign-out signature. Apparently the gym likes to know how many people attend their classes. I did not realize then that I would dwell on this seemingly inane piece of information for this long. It is about 36 hours since this happened and I finally have an outline of why that number 27 is lingering on my mind- or at least I think I do.

Here is what I have been thinking. What would the gym do with this number 27? This number is not the number of patrons at the beginning of the class nor the number at the end. This is precisely the maximum number of people that happen to be in that studio at any time during the class. Maybe they would rank and rate their various instructors based on this number. Maybe they would use this number as a metric for stocking sufficient dumbbells, steps, mats and the like. Maybe they use this number 27 to decide if they need to add another class for this instructor since it is so popular. Or maybe they simply like to use this number 27 for marketing purposes- "Bethany's most popular Zumba class! Arrive early or lose your spot to the 27 others that were there last week". Maybe all of the above. They are tracking this number, making some key decisions based off this number and are arriving at an optimum solution.

It is funny because I too have something I have been tracking. I would say I track it on a moment-ly basis but since moment-ly is not a real word and moment is not a finite span of time*, I will stick to saying that I track it constantly. It is a list, consisting of Raaga, home, husband, career, family in India, friends, miscellaneous and myself- in no consistent order. Every time I tried to focus on one thing from my list, something else took the beating. Every day I took the time out for a run or a long bike ride, dishes got piled up in the sink. Every morning that I was at work on time (7:30am), Raaga most likely had a bad hair day. Every India trip that lasted three weeks or longer was ridiculed as 'mini sabbatical' by my coworkers. The scale announced a three year high for my lbs recently after just two short months of my ditching workouts and instead spending the time with family or volunteering. Just like the gym guys, I want to use the data I have and come up with an optimum solution. So I attempted to look at the situation mathematically. 

Group#1: Raaga/home/husband/family/friends/miscellaneous

Group#2: Career

Group#3: Myself (1. Weight management, 2. Music, 3. Teaching, 4. Other stuff)

G1 inversely proportional to G2 and G3

G2 inversely proportional to G3

G3(x) inversely proportional to G3 (x-complement)

OK. It has been too long since my last advanced Math class. Maybe I need to dust off my thesis and other related literature covering Hamiltonians. Maybe I need to go for a crash course with the women all around me that seem to be able to do it all. Or maybe I need to deal with the fact that I can never do it all. Maybe I just need to be content looking at things that are going well rather than the things that are ignored as a result.

Whenever I run, I feel good about myself- I just need to ignore the dishes; they can wait another day or week. Whenever I go to work on time, I feel like I am headed in the right direction for career- Raaga can have a bad hair day or week. I'll just call it crazy hair week! Whenever I go to India, I have a great time with my family- I will just stay there a week or two longer next time so it can really be a mini-sabbatical! The joy I get out of spending quality time with Raaga or teaching Telugu to a handful of 8yr olds** simply cannot be measured. The pounds that can be measured will just stay put until I go back to the beginning and repeat this infinite loop. 

Life is no gym, I am no gym-owner tracking the productivity based on data and mathematical calculations, and while the gym-owners are in full control of their business, I certainly am in no position of control at all. This is not a business! This is my life! 

Raaga's Class with their participation certificates. Raaga went from not understanding a word of conversational Telugu to speaking full sentences and even reciting a poem on stage in just three months!

Poems were recited. Jokes were cracked. Tickling funny news were delivered. Literary gems were effortlessly reproduced. My class! and I am proud!

*1: 

When I was in the final year of college, nearly a decade before the birth of Facebook, I passed my autograph book*** around to my classmates. It was mainly to get their phone numbers (and email addresses of those that had them****). Before you judge me, I must add that it was fairly common to own autograph books back then. In addition to the phone number and email address categories, my book had such juvenile, random and intrusive items such as "My best friends:", "Define love"  and "My favorite moments" respectively. OK, maybe you should judge me, for I bought such a book. Getting back to the point, this one classmate of mine, a boy, answered that favorite moment piece as thus: "A moment is not a finite span of time. It is more of a continuum". Contrary to my conviction back then and perhaps yours right now, that boy did not end up a scientist. He went to business school instead. Hindsight is 20-20, for I now think he totally makes for a great businessman- he answered my question, one that he very likely did not want to answer, without really answering it at all. His roll number in college was 27, like this 27 number from gym that's been on my mind! I am like the Nobel winning mathematician John Nash (while he was delusional, of course) and the aliens are sending me secret code!

*2:
We attended our Telugu school's graduation ceremony last night. Raaga recited a Telugu poem on stage despite not fully recovering from last week's Flu and all my students made me proud with their dazzling stage performances. 

*3: 
No, I am not going to post pictures of the contents of my autograph books (plural intentional, I had two!). I just looked at one and parts of it made me nauseous. I guess terrible twos continue well past teens.

*4:
Some of my classmates from college actually did not own an email account at the time of our graduation. That was perfectly normal in those days. Crap. I feel so old. :(

P.S: 
I have been wanting to put down my thoughts for a while, started blogging a few times these past few months but never finished any of them. I am glad I finally finished this one at least- makes me feel lighter somehow. But then, I just noticed it is 1:34AM, still need to pack Raaga's lunch for tomorrow and I need to be up by 5:30AM. Ugh.