The Website Mishap and More

After being a loyal customer of the crappy Hostmonster service, they finally terminated our contract yesterday.

Reason given? They didn’t want to deal with the hackings and exploits on one of the accounts, as if the security breaches were our fault and not due to their inability to provide a secure server. Then again, it was a cheap service so I am not complaining much. They could have given us a heads-up though; the account was terminated without so much as a phone call. Anyway, the advice is to avoid Hostmonster if you are looking for quality service and customer support.

We forked over $400 yesterday for two different servers–one for my personal needs and another for professional needs. I don’t know if that would resolve the hosting problems we have had, but it is a start. It also helps out one of our progamming gurus who is responsible for some of the work on DREAMAct2009.com. He was just laid off so we decided to help him out by shifting and upgrading his existing server. It just made sense since again, we cannot pay him for his services. Ideally, communications would have a budget to pay stipends for blogging work, graphic designing, server costs, house the 1800 hotline, obtain PR Newswire services, and so much more. But I am never going to hold my breathe and wait for some much-needed help to come my way. It’s alright to exploit our labor but not compensate it because somehow the lack of a piece of paper makes us less worthy, less qualified.

Sometimes, I look back and don’t really know how I got to this point where I am installing and repairing databases, restoring sites. I certainly don’t enjoy it–my life was built around rebelling against becoming a stereotypical Indian computer scientist. And here I am with several diplomas in fields like ethnic studies, political science and international relations, stuck doing programming, organizing, graphic designing, video production, social media and consulting work and not getting paid for it. Life has a cruel way of throwing a curveball at us, especially when we don’t even play baseball. I guess that’s what true leadership means: rising to the occasion, putting aside our own values and morals, and doing whatever it takes to get things done.

I just hope I don’t forget who I really am, what I really want and believe, and where I come from when all this is over. Our parents drag us to this country without our consent because they have certain dreams for us and never really stop to ask ‘What is it that you want? How is it that you want to live? Where do you want to live?’ We would be successful wherever we go but stay with them because they are family and we need to keep the family unit together. That’s just how lives are ruined, dreams are destroyed and we have to somehow settle for something that was never part of the plan.

This is not a goal; it is a detour. Living here is not my dream; it is someone else’s fixation with an American dream that is a mirage. I spent 10 years trying to not build long-lasting relationships with anyone here because I have always planned to leave and for the most part, succeeding in isolating myself. Maybe it was in self-preservation–I have been ripped apart from loved ones before and there is no way I would allow that again. The upside is that I have friends all over the world that I have deeper relationships with than the people I work with on a daily basis. People who have never met me probably know me better. I don’t know what to make of it all–bless the Internet. That’s how my life found me again.