If you are have a true friend, if you have true love in your life, there’s bound to be occasions when you end up in a negative situation. There might be frozen talking terms or hurt egos. In times like these, you oscillate between your desire to set things correct and your natural instinct which wants the other person to come and clarify it with you. What do you do in such a scenario? The first step that you should take is a step back. Detach yourself from the situation and think objectively. It’s the hardest thing to do in a situation where you are emotionally involved. But you have to do it for the sake of the bond. One among the two of you has to take this step to resolve the issue and it might as well be you.

Try not to react. It’s very normal that you’d want to hit out at the person and say a few nasty things. But, will it help you? Will it sort the matter out? Replying with a conflicting statement will only add insult to injury and take the whole matter to a more complicated level. If possible, talk it out privately. If you must, only then involve a common friend. By no means get a friend who the other person doesn’t know. It makes the person feel that you are out to show your influence and contacts rather than patch up things. No one understands the dynamics of a relationship except the two persons involved.

A point I made while writing about how to say “Sorry” is applicable here as well. Do not sleep over a negative situation or try to cover it up saying, “Everything is ok!” If there’s an issue and you know it, hiding it will only make things worse. Talk it out at the earliest available opportunity. Be careful after things have been sorted out. It takes time to put things back on track and these times are crucial. The other person may be testing your intentions at every point of time. It takes time to regain lost faith. Keep patience and work towards nurturing the bond back to the good old days! Good luck!

Apple has done it again! It has come with a brand new edition of the Ipod Shuffle. The storage on this is 4 GB. Donna walked into my cubicle with this news. She’s a music freak and if there’s anything new on the music shelf, she’s the person you should tap to know more about the details of the product, the price, the features etc. She informed me that this Ipod was unveiled without much fanfare and it looks really sleek. This is a really small one and has only the shuffle mode switch on the body of the device. The controls are on the earplug cord. The disadvantage to this is that you cannot use an earplug that is not Apple manufactured. Donna thinks it’s just a marketing ploy of the company to push the earplugs it manufactures. She’s not a big fan of the Apple earplugs.

But she’s all game for this special feature on this Ipod: it talks to you! Donna explained to me that it has a switch on the remote, a long press, which can make the device tell you what song is being played and your playlist. She squealed, “You can choose from a variety of language options too!” Not a feature that I would use more regularly, I reminded her. But that didn’t do anything to bring down her enthusiasm level. She told me straight that the product was not for me and I can very well continue to use my old portable music system! “They are so obsolete that even if you throw them, there’s hardly anyone who would bother to pick them up!” I smiled and replied, “I’ll pick them before anyone does.” Exasperated, she left the room! If you think of the world about this new Ipod Shuffle from the Apple stable, you can write in your support for Donna.

The American Idol is slowly inching towards the final stages. There’s a fair amount of tension and the suspense level will progressively go up every night the show is aired. This week on American Idol, two contestants were voted out. There was some tension at my pad as well. When Jasmine was declared unsafe a gasp went out from my two friends who are more sure to turn up than maybe even the contestants! They were happy that she was given an opportunity to sing again and give it a shot at impressing the judges. But neither Jasmine, nor Adrian or Irina, found any luck here. The judges declared that it was the end of Jasmine’s journey on American Idol Season 8.

Of the two other contestants, Adrian was sure Anoop would be the one who’ll get the boot. But that was not to be. He survived and Jorge was asked to leave. Adrian was upset at this. He liked the performance of Jorge more than he liked Anoop’s and though Irina, thought the right decision has been made, Adrian stuck to his point. I sided with Irina. I didn’t really like what I saw of Jorge. I don’t think very highly of Anoop as well, but between the two of them, I’d say the right decision was taken. Do you agree with me on this? Are you happy at the way American Idol Season 8 is heading? Leave your comments.