The day that belongs to all of us is here! Find out how a rather silly issue escalated into a big fight. Also, read about a phenomenon that is trending among workers who are handed the pink slip…

Friendship Day is here, folks! This time around, I want to thank you guys for being there for me and my friends. I would like to thank you on behalf of all my friends out here. Over the days I have felt how much you like to care and feel concerned about me and the misadventures of my friends. I have been greatly motivated by all the wonderful comments that you write in, along with all the words of appreciation and support for me and my friends as we go about our lives in New York City.

Friends are people whom we sometimes take for granted. It’s more so when that person is really close to you. But the power of a ‘thank you’ or a ‘sorry’ should never be underestimated. Appreciate your friend and be generous with those pats on the back. These little gestures will take your friendship in the right direction, despite the unruly winds that try to take it wayward. With the world getting more close and people getting more lonely, a true friend is worth more than you can imagine. Treasure them.

Adrian and Cathy are fast taking up the mantle of having silly fights! The latest fight that they had got me and Rick rolling with convulsive belly laughter. It so happened that Adrian was very taken up by the idea of texting love messages to Cathy. As you guys must have guessed, he took this fad up from Henry, who regularly writes sugar-coated messages to Kate. Kate gushes about them to us, prompting Adrian to start doing the same. What he didn’t take into account is that Kate and Cathy are very different human beings!

In the initial stages of Adrian’s torrent of love quotes, Cathy appreciated this new-found trend of his. But soon she got tad irritated by the flood of miniature love epics streaming down on her inbox, even when she’s at work. Finally Cathy had enough! She told Adrian that though she liked that he wrote to her so often, she wanted him to write about his own feelings. Apparently Adrian has been sending her love quotes, crediting the quote to someone or the other. Cathy told him frankly, “I don’t care what John Donne felt about his love! I want to know what you feel about me!”

Someone is dreading his own birthday! Ethan, who’s generally the cool teenager with a give-no-damn attitude, is not so sure of himself nowadays. His birthday is in August. His neighborhood gang of friends have a ritual among them. They carry out the traditional birthday bumps on the birthday boy. Ethan himself tried it out on many of his guy friends. But he’s very scared of that same trend as his own birthday comes near. Reason: Ethan is very scared of heights!

He confided to me that he would really like to stay indoors and tell his gang that he’s sick. “Get well soon cards on a birthday is far better than being flung up high in the air!” he told me. I understood his fear. We had a friend in childhood who was as scared and went into hiding once on his birthday. We searched high and low but he was not to be found till the next day. And we had to satisfy ourselves with belated birthday wishes. I assured him everything would be fine, but he’s still edgy.

I have noted something among a few of my friends who got laid off from work. I must say they are very optimistic to have taken such a thing in a positive way. Instead of worrying away about their career and jobs, they are spending this interim time in a constructive and active way. They are looking up for like-minded people on social networking sites for colleagues and co-workers who are in a similar state of limbo. Connecting base with them gives them a feeling of security that they are not in this alone.

So what do these people do? Besides engaging in a full time effort to look for a job, they chat up with people and engage in online activities that broadens their skill sets. Some spend the time traveling. Some pursue hobbies that they could not indulge in when they were working. So it’s all an effort to do something worthwhile as they wait for the next hit at success. It not only acts as a stress reliever, it also takes your mind off the pressing and thankless problem of having to look around for a job.

This week’s Zen quote by Henry Ford sums up the feelings of the funemployed: “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”