Ice Ice Skatin'

I had awesome fun today learning how to skate on ice. My first try out! Woohoo! My friend was nice enough to give some useful tips and support me all the times I was abt to fall.
Bottomline:
Ice Skating = 2 Falls + 1 Major bruise + 2 Minor Bruises + 2 scratches + LOTSSA FUN!!!

I would rather have bruises and falls than not trying out new things like skating.

My fun wish list:
1. Bungee jumping (both from bridge and chopper, can give a chance to Spore bungee too!)
2. Skuba Diving
3. Snorkeling
(for 2 and 3 I need to go swmming more often.. and get better at it!)
4. Water rafting
5. Wind, Kite and water surfing
6. Experience free fall (of course with a parachute :P)
7. Skiing at the Alps
.... on and on and on

Hardware Blues!

Guess what I did for 8 hrs today? Wrongly configured a piece of hardware and got all too agitated about it!
But then, conforming to 80-20 principle (or should I say 96.875 - 3.125 principle to be precise), I realised my mistake in the last 15 minutes and rectified it. I had merely started off with the wrong numbering side while connecting the pins. What a waste!

Family Matters - Rohinson Mistry

Finally, I did finish reading the book. And here is my own review of the book.

The backdrop of the story is the post Babri Masjid and post riots Bombay, surrounded by the cob webs of poverty, fundamentalism and corruption. It begins with 79 years old and naturally cynnical Nari, the patriarch of the family fracturing a bone. Suffering from osteoporosis and parkinson's and the addition of a new handicap, he is a financial and emotional burden to his 2 unmarried step children. Unable to stand it all anymore, they thrust the responsibilty to their half sister Roxana.
This story has been narrated beautifully. At one side there is unfulfilled love, longing for companionship, jealousy, religious bigots and ship-wrecking ambivalence. On the other there is love, unity, faith, basic goodness of mankind and higher conscious.
The writer has managed to keep the story simple yet touching. He has an amazing ability to portray the characters with exactitude and accord real-ness to them.

An excellent read. Thanks to my friend Surajit for lending me the book!

Family Matters

The first thing I noticed about this book was the intriguing name "Family matters".What could it mean? I asked myself not knowing a single thing about the book yet. Does the author mean that "a family is essential" or "the family affairs". Finally I decided that to be relevant to present society, it has to be the latter.

You wanna see my pic?

Many a poeple asked me why I do not have a picture of myself in my blog or website. Apart from the fact that I am too lazy to choose a nice one to put up, this added to my reluctance to do so.

GM vs Microsoft

I read this somewhere --

At a recent computer expo, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating the following: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.

Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would accept this, restart, and drive on.

Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart; in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT.' Then you would have to buy more seats.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was more reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.

The oil, water, temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car fault' warning light.

New seats would force everyone to have the same back-end size.

The airbag system would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.

Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 per cent or more.

Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

You'd press the 'Start' button to shut off the engine.

Stand and Stare

What is more pleasurable than sitting idly in the middle of glittery orchard road on an evening, looking at the hustle-bustle of the busy shoppers rushing for sales, listening to the blaring music from the road shows promoting everything under the sun (moon?) and enjoying the lovely aroma of coffee?
How is it possible for life to slow down in the midst of such dynamism, one may ask. And why would I want to slow down in this eventful and competitive world? I feel its important to sometimes take a step back and stare at the world. And this is pure joy to me... it gives me this wonderful feeling of “I am here now” while warding off my usual feeling of “Where will I be tomorrow”.

As W.H. Davies rightly says in “Leisure”

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I think this is an amalgamation of so many feelings which are hard to discern.

Changes of the nature ...

What a weather! It is scorching hot for while, next moment a chilly wind is blowing and the very next minute it is raining cats and dogs… and then it is drizzling with a placid sunshine ... and then this cycle repeats…

Feels like an ambivalent weather God cannot make up his mind. Or is it because of a short tempered mercurial weather God, casting a furious glance for one minute and relenting at the next?

But I love it, I love the variances in nature, it brings so much liveliness to an otherwise lazy Saturday afternoon...

To be .. Or not to be .. I cannot decide!

I am quite sick of making trivial decisions. There are just too many options in this world! I feel it that whenever I have to make a decision about where to eat, what to eat, where to hang out, which movie to watch. Does it make a difference if I eat a Fajita at a Mexican restaurant or Kebab at Lebanese one? Why do I have to think so much. I think the underlying reason for this is that I want to make sure that I get the best of what is available. But does it really matter? It is almost the same, isn’t it? Or is it? I can’t decide again.

Yoga Basics

One of the very popular techniques for mental and physical relaxation is Yoga. Yoga in its literal sense means "unity". I believe it signifies the union of the mind and body to lead to spiritualism.
I came accross these 5 principles which precisely define Yoga :

Yoga Basics

1. Proper Exercise (Asanas)

It is essential for the body to be in fit and fine. This can be acheived by regular stretching and exercise. Yoga emphasises early morning exercises which require stretching and make the body flexible.

2. Proper Breathing (Pranayama)

Yoga teached using the lungs to their maximum capacity and controling the breath. Proper breathing should be deep, slow and rhythmical. This increases mental clarity and releases stress.

3. Proper Relaxation (Savasana)
By relaxing deeply all the muscles the nervous system is thoroughly rejuvenated which helps attain a deep sense of inner peace.

4. Proper Diet

We are what we eat. Though a strict vegetarian diet is difficult to maintain, it is very beneficial for the body. Yoga advocates a lacto-vegetarian diet. Regular fasting and fruit diet is also recommended.

5. Meditation (Dhyana)
A healthy mind is the most important of all. Thus we should exert to entertain positive and creative thoughts as these will contribute to vibrant health and a peaceful, joyful mind. A positive outlook on life can be developed by learning and practicing meditation. The way to practise it is to concentrate on ones's breathing and ward of the negative thoughts. This clears the mind and brings it under perfect control. I personally feel that this helps us to attain a control over our emotions and achieve better EQ.

Hope I can incorprate this in my busy life.

Best Practices

I just came across this link that contains the guidelines, patterns and even code samples provided by Microsoft to help the developers incorprate quality in their codes. I have not used it personally, but I think it would be good stepping stone for many of us who have been following the principle of "code any how as long as it works".

Bad throat

I realised over the past few weeks that I constantly have this cough because of some kind of irritation in my throat ... It has been quite persistent .. So I am gonna see a doc finally .. mabbe tomm. Hope there is nothing serious.

Microsoft Student Champion

Yeah, it does sound like I have won all the competitions organised by Microsoft like imagine cup and all. But paradoxically, it is not so with me. As a Microsoft Student Champion my role is more as to "champion" the Microsoft Technologies among student population, increase awareness about VS .Net etc .. and all for only free drinks from Microsoft Pantry in return. Too few rewards to too much work.. *sigh*

Vote with Feet

In some weird context, one of my fellow SgDotNet'er (www.sgdotnet.org) introduced me to this term "Vote with Feet". Sounds intriguing .. doesn't it?
I am sure everyone has been in situations where they were afraid to walk out because thet feel that thay will have nowhere to go. These are the situations where one must "vote with feet".
1) If you are in a abusive relationship, you should walk out of this relationship instead of complaining about how bad the company is.
2) If you are holding stakes in a crappy-junk company via shares, you should sell them instead of complaining about how bad the company is.
These are two examples of voting with your feet. People tend to worry that the road ends if they vote with their feet. But instead the motto should be : Have road, Will travel...
This makes tremendous sense!

Emotional Quotient

One of the topics that has never failed to fascinate me is "Emotional Quotient". I would describe it as a way to manage our emotions to increase our happiness and well being. I admire those people who have high EQs and are able to control their emotions and act logically under pressing situations.
I found this quote so downright true:
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. - Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
This is one art I would really like to master...

For the first time...

I am informed that I won a goodie bag from the movie, "Hitch", comprising a Hitch T-shirt, cap and notebook.
Sounds good, its my first time winnin smthing like this .. usually I am not lucky at these 'lucky' draws!
But anyways, they are making sure that I work for the goodie bag. I will have to go all the way to orchard road to collect it.
Wonder if the T-shirt will fit me...

Lady luck looks down on me...

Do you ever believe in this 'balancing out' factor about "fortunate" and "unfortunate" events? Like if something goes terribly wrong, there is something else which turns out to be equally fantastic to make the score even or slide to the positive :)
Well,I had such an experience
Last month, I had this particular weekend:
Friday: lost my mobile phone (1 month old, Nokia fashion series)
Saturday: Laptop hard disk crashed!
Sunday: had the worst fight with my best buddy..
But finally the lady luck looked down on me, that particular week I won:
1. Gold for girls' basketball
2. Gold for girls' soccer
3. Bronze for my project at COE (college of tech) week
4. Bronze for my research poster at COE week

Musings

Lately I have realized that my writings have become too technical.. If I concentrate merely on that, think that kinda beats the purpose of my blogging ..
Purpose of this blog : Recollect, reflect and muse!
So here is a renewal and a new beginning.. Doesn't mean I will ditch the tech things I like .. But there is gonna be more to it.. And more regular!!
love to all!