Sunday 18 July 2010

Life as I see it



Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature’s design. Are you? Goals will help you do that. I must add, don’t just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful.Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.
There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.
You must have read some quotes – Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school, where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.
One last thing about nurturing the spark – don’t take life seriously. One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said – don’t be serious, be sincere. This quote has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism. If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I live? Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It’s ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.
             "This is an excerpt from a speach given by Chatan Bhagat to a new batch of MBA Students at Symbiosis, Pune"

Sunday 18 April 2010

Friends: Are they worth the trouble?

The last few days, how ever important they were seemed to move slowly and lousily and I was in bed 
doing nothing worth mentioning. All I could be bothered doing was create a blog, update my facebook page, answer silly questions on them, befriend people, constantly check for new emails.. I was not even in a mood to chat with people online or on the phone. One of the noteworthy tasks I did in the last few days was reflect back on my past, think about the mistakes I made, betrayal, deceit, hatred, gossip, jealousy, boyfriends and all the drama. Some of it could be laughed off as funny and some not as they really made a huge impact on who I am now. In a way they really played a role in the moulding of me and I don't regret it.


I could have done something more useful like reading up on course material, researching on my final year project, applying for internships, talking to the professors or at least gone out with a couple of friends and had some fun. I chose not to.


Its frustrating when you get back home from a tiring day only to face a table, bed and chair and the only form of communication you have is online since you can do this while completing your assignments. It's not fun.


In thinking back I had to ask myself, what friends are for? To have fun while you are around and forget you completely when you are not? To trust you when they have no one to confide to and leave you stranded when you need them? To talk to you and enjoy your jokes and laugh at you when you walk away? Judge you on the rest of the people you hang around with and forget that the person within may be completely different? Get jealous of all your accomplishments and in the process refrain from lending a helping hand? Base your decision about your friend on what your boy friend thinks she might be or on rumours that another might say? And the list goes on and it came to a point where I had to think if friends where worth having with all these problems.


To understand a person completely is utterly impossible. No one is perfect and that includes me as well. I can fit in a number of friends into every category of these questions and I can see where I fit in as well. Isn't forgiveness something we learnt when we were little? So no worries my friends I've forgotten and forgiven. To the last and first question my answer is yes, because I think the most beautiful parts of my life which I would cherish forever were not when I was on stage receiving an award (indeed that was memorable) but the times that I had with my friends. Because the mistakes made seem so much smaller when compared to the times we had. And i must say I've got a great bunch of friends. I love you all..

Saturday 17 April 2010

Needs Motivation

This is one of those times when you have all the things in the world to do but cant get yourself to do anything. Hence I created a blog for the nth time. I hope this lasts longer than the previous ones I've created since the past two years and I seriously hope I don't forget the url. I have had an overdose of Sheldon Cooper and Dan Brown, hence it is perfectly understandable as to why I feel utterly lost in a world of science and a world of religion. Maybe at this point I'm regretting my decision trying to do an undergraduate degree in computer science, firstly because being one of the two females in a batch of 80 geeks is in itself quite frustrating, secondly I have no idea what I should do as a Final Year Project. I requested for some ideas on an on-line chess playing site namely, Red Hot Pawn and the response I got was quite pathetic. Although the site claims to have people who are hardcore computer scientists, the best suggestion I got was to write an algorithm to identify stupid/idiotic remarks and screen them so that you don't have to employ a moderator to do so or in most cases No moderator does this hence is published with no screening. Although the idea would sound rather stupid to the common mob, I believe its quite an interesting area to look into with all the breakthroughs in creating machines/systems that mimics human. How ever experts believe this wont be in the near future and to write an algorithm for detecting stupidity is certainly not possible for a penultimate year undergrad student who lacks a lot in motivation and has to overcome the imposter syndrome. That's probably my Current State of mind in a nutshell. Back to Big Bang Theory.