Simply Me
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Making studying fun...
So I'm studying for the SAP Certified Application Associate Exams... The pattern changed today i.e. May 1st and I really wanna be one of the first in the team to give the exam. But as I try desperately to study and my hands keep wandering to Mozilla Firefox and the Facebook tab, I have to think about the time I had really enjoyed studying...
There were my classes in 10th at Rajesh Study Centre (RSC) when we used to sit at the class all day and study. While one sir kept the doors unlocked for us, the other gave us treats of Samosas (in my case kachori) and soft drinks. Aditi, Sonal and I had a ball studying and chatting.
Then there were the engineering days, be it practicing graphics together or studying for IP, we have gathered at my house and studied... but not before 'Pet Pooja'... Pehle watermelon and then studies...
Then came the MCSE classes (I still can't believe I never gave the final qualifying exam to become MCSE certified... I stopped at 6 exams... can you believe it???)... Staying back after class, playing with the VMWare, making all those images, testing all kinds of crazy scenarios that took our whim...
But, in all honesty, this post is not about all those times... as we went out to Mezza9 to celebrate 3 years of the Campus 1 batch at KPIT(though our batch completes 3 years on 7th May), I got talking to Uday, our trainer, about all the fun we trainees had had. When I had first seen Uday, during the walk-in at Tejas Office, I had thought he was one of the engineers, a young guy like him definitely wasn't a recruiter. I am embarrassed to admit, that I had actually borrowed a pen from him since I had nervously left my pen case (yeah I used to carry one... Manish has even teased me about it being evidence that I was Uday's trainee) in my sack (yeah, I still prefer it to hauling around a purse). Imagine my shock when I walk in with 4 other people and see the same guy talking to a room of almost 50 people. It was later that I knew that he was, indeed, the trainer. 7 days of intense training both technical and V&A and I was a nervous wreck about the first exams. The exams left just about 15 of us with some shifted to the dev training and just a handful in Architecture (that was what BIP was called back then). Then around 6 more joined us for the product training and we were on our way. To cut a long story short our training started on 7th May 2007 and ended on 7th July 2007 (get it.. 7-7-07?) That's just the short of it, but what made it enjoyable was this...
We celebrated everyone's birthday with songs from Yogesh (if you look back through my posts... just search for the name Yogesh and you'll know... he is one incredible singer) and for some reason from me as well... Mimicry(I wonder if anyone remembers the Hyderabadi stand-up)... e-mails on our KPIT group (all sorts of non-sense including a chain mail.. again something you'll find somewhere in the posts)... the servers and workflows lessons with chocolates (needless to say all said chocolates were provided by Parag as it was a rule that whoever called Uday 'Sir' was to get everyone chocolates the next day. Parag had a ready stash of chocolates), the last day i.e. red day and cake cutting, the presentation 4 of us had given as a possible Sales team marketing Business Objects (I remember Manish saying, 'You said you get stage fright? I don't think so') and most importantly, the BOCD presentation that Parag, Sumeet and I had given. That gave us a lesson in presentation, addressing the public at large and in my case an idea of how to keep your mouth moving, making words come out of it and sound sensible even though your knees are shaking and you are on the brink of a panic attack.
The singing, writing on the glass partitions (drawing the workflows... not ruining the glass partitions), listening to music until Uday came back to the training room as we tested all the tasks, the laughter is something that I miss while I study alone today before my computer... Some of my batchmates are still in KPIT, though very few of the then architecture training team remain... just Parag, Nikhil K., Yogesh and I... Atleast 3 have left in 2010 alone...
Of the Campus 1 batch, most are senior engineers, one ASME, one Manager but the fact is, the celebration still is big...
Wishing my Campus 1 batchmates and the two trainers Uday and Manish CONGRATULATIONS on our completing one more year at KPIT... As Anis Sir's e-mail said, Keep Walking...
There were my classes in 10th at Rajesh Study Centre (RSC) when we used to sit at the class all day and study. While one sir kept the doors unlocked for us, the other gave us treats of Samosas (in my case kachori) and soft drinks. Aditi, Sonal and I had a ball studying and chatting.
Then there were the engineering days, be it practicing graphics together or studying for IP, we have gathered at my house and studied... but not before 'Pet Pooja'... Pehle watermelon and then studies...
Then came the MCSE classes (I still can't believe I never gave the final qualifying exam to become MCSE certified... I stopped at 6 exams... can you believe it???)... Staying back after class, playing with the VMWare, making all those images, testing all kinds of crazy scenarios that took our whim...
But, in all honesty, this post is not about all those times... as we went out to Mezza9 to celebrate 3 years of the Campus 1 batch at KPIT(though our batch completes 3 years on 7th May), I got talking to Uday, our trainer, about all the fun we trainees had had. When I had first seen Uday, during the walk-in at Tejas Office, I had thought he was one of the engineers, a young guy like him definitely wasn't a recruiter. I am embarrassed to admit, that I had actually borrowed a pen from him since I had nervously left my pen case (yeah I used to carry one... Manish has even teased me about it being evidence that I was Uday's trainee) in my sack (yeah, I still prefer it to hauling around a purse). Imagine my shock when I walk in with 4 other people and see the same guy talking to a room of almost 50 people. It was later that I knew that he was, indeed, the trainer. 7 days of intense training both technical and V&A and I was a nervous wreck about the first exams. The exams left just about 15 of us with some shifted to the dev training and just a handful in Architecture (that was what BIP was called back then). Then around 6 more joined us for the product training and we were on our way. To cut a long story short our training started on 7th May 2007 and ended on 7th July 2007 (get it.. 7-7-07?) That's just the short of it, but what made it enjoyable was this...
We celebrated everyone's birthday with songs from Yogesh (if you look back through my posts... just search for the name Yogesh and you'll know... he is one incredible singer) and for some reason from me as well... Mimicry(I wonder if anyone remembers the Hyderabadi stand-up)... e-mails on our KPIT group (all sorts of non-sense including a chain mail.. again something you'll find somewhere in the posts)... the servers and workflows lessons with chocolates (needless to say all said chocolates were provided by Parag as it was a rule that whoever called Uday 'Sir' was to get everyone chocolates the next day. Parag had a ready stash of chocolates), the last day i.e. red day and cake cutting, the presentation 4 of us had given as a possible Sales team marketing Business Objects (I remember Manish saying, 'You said you get stage fright? I don't think so') and most importantly, the BOCD presentation that Parag, Sumeet and I had given. That gave us a lesson in presentation, addressing the public at large and in my case an idea of how to keep your mouth moving, making words come out of it and sound sensible even though your knees are shaking and you are on the brink of a panic attack.
The singing, writing on the glass partitions (drawing the workflows... not ruining the glass partitions), listening to music until Uday came back to the training room as we tested all the tasks, the laughter is something that I miss while I study alone today before my computer... Some of my batchmates are still in KPIT, though very few of the then architecture training team remain... just Parag, Nikhil K., Yogesh and I... Atleast 3 have left in 2010 alone...
Of the Campus 1 batch, most are senior engineers, one ASME, one Manager but the fact is, the celebration still is big...
Wishing my Campus 1 batchmates and the two trainers Uday and Manish CONGRATULATIONS on our completing one more year at KPIT... As Anis Sir's e-mail said, Keep Walking...
Labels: Congratulations and celebrations, Kitabein bohot si padhi hongi tumne, Yaadein reh jaati hain...
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Mercy - Jodi Picoult
Is it selfish if you know you are losing the person you love and you would have them suffer than see them die? Would you if they asked you kill then with your own hands? Is love greater than the pain of losing the person you love more than yourself?When life throws a curveball and the 'you' who has always had this wanderlust has to stay and take care of your clan, would you put your duties before your own desires? Would the person who is as free as the wind make you fall for them so hard that you would be ready to give up your wife, your roots, your whole being and be ready to take off with them wherever life might take you?
There are two stories running parallelly in Mercy... 5 lead characters and main supporting characters... Cam, the police chief and the chief of his clan, bound by tradition to take care of Wheelock after his father's death; Allie, Cam's wife, owner of a flower shop and the person for whom the sun rises and sets at her husband's behest; Mia, a new comer to the town who enchants Allie with her bonsai and enchants Cam with her whole being... she is everything he ever wanted in life; Jamie, who loved... loves his wife so much that he took his wife's life when dying of cancer she asked him to kill her so she wouldn't spend each day worrying about when her lat day would come; Maggie, Jamie's dead wife, who though dead lives in Jamie's heart and mind... Then there are Graham, Jamie's lawyer, Ellen, Cam's mother and Angus, Cam's uncle...
The story begins with a woman selling off all of her husband's belongings and walking away... It then goes into flashback when Jamie comes to Wheelock to surrender after having smothered his wife...
The two stories run alongside each other... As Jamie says, love is never equal... one loves the other more than the other... Jamie loves his wife so much he grants her request without considering the consequence to himself... Allie loves Cam so much that when all evidence points to the betrayal of her husband, she puts an innocent turn to it... Mia loves Cam so much that she doesn't want Cam to lose his identity because of her...
How exactly do you measure love? The memories it brings? The time you spend together? The way you see them in your mind even when you don't close your eyes?
I still haven't finished the book... Jamie stands trial for committing a murder no matter how heart-rending the situation... Cam on one hand hires a lawyer for Jamie and on the other tries to sever all ties with him... Allie defies her husband to support Jamie, because she can understand the love that made him do what he did... Mia loves Cam so much it hurts to go away but she keeps trying to put her distance for her sake, for Allie's sake, for Cam's own sake... most of Wheelock thinks Jamie had no right to play God... Jamie and Maggies' friends think of Jamie's gesture as more noble than wrong... but what does the law say? Would emotions win over the law?
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Studying...
12:30 a.m. and I am still studying... last time I was studying so hard was during my MCSE exams...
Tired... but still lots to do and gotta complete this today so that I can complete the rest tomorrow... exhausted... so thought I'd look at my own blog and cheer myself...
The stupid module I am reading is supposed to be completed in 2 and a half to 2 hours 45 minutes... yeah right!!!!
Tired... but still lots to do and gotta complete this today so that I can complete the rest tomorrow... exhausted... so thought I'd look at my own blog and cheer myself...
The stupid module I am reading is supposed to be completed in 2 and a half to 2 hours 45 minutes... yeah right!!!!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Entwined - Lynda LaPlante
A beautiful baroness... A fearless lion trainer... What is it that binds them?
Why does the baroness, Vebekka, behave so strangely? Why is she so loving at a certain time and why does she burn her daughter's dolls the next moment? Why does she attack a clown at a circus? Why does she hurt everyone around her... people she loves... people who love her? What are the strange colors she keeps seeing? What is it that possesses her... fills her with fury?
What makes Ruda so fearless? Her life hangs on the balance every time she steps in the same in the ring with 16 tigers... 4 lions... 4 lionesses... a panther... she loves her cats more than she loves the people around her... she loves them like her own babies... so gentle with them when the slightest human mistake makes her furious...
This is the story of Ruda and Rebecca, two sisters separated as children... their struggle as they try to find each other and themselves...
The way their lives are described entwines you in the mystery... The book is beautiful... a must read for anyone who loves adventures of a different kind... A very different book.. unexpected climax... You will love the two women who are so different yet so alike...
Tejaswini's ratings... *** 1/2 Beg... borrow... steal... Worth reading...
Ratings:
* Chuck it... Heck why did I even bother to bring the book home?
** Shelf it... Read it once... trying to forget it...
*** Beg... borrow... steal... Worth reading Read it... love it...
**** Buy it... Deserves to be bought
***** A keeper... Buy it... read it over and over... love it each time...
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Perfect Match - Jodi Picoult
How far would you go?
You are an assistant district attorney... Every day you help put behind bars the perps who destroy lives of kids by abusing them... You will even consider putting the kid on the stand if that's what it takes to avenge the horrors they have faced... Your aim in life is to make every child ever to walk the street safe...
But what do you do when the child who is abused is your own? Will you put him on the stand and make him relive the horror over again? Will you wait for the justice system to take its course and avenge your son or will you serve justice yourself? How far would YOU go?
The Perfect Match is the story of assistant district attorney Nina Frost, her husband Caleb and their 5 year old son Nathaniel... When suddenly the bubbly energetic child stops talking, Nina and Caleb take him to a paediatricianto try and figure out what is wrong... The truth unravels as they find out what the child wishes to say... He has been abused... How far will Nina go to save her child?
This is the third Jodi Picoult book I have read and I have to say I love her style of writing... it just touches you so intensely... I shan't write anything more about the story.. just that this story has moved me and I had to write about it...
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Atlas Shrugged
Atlas, it is said, bore the weight of the sky on his shoulder. There are variations in this myth... Some say he held up earth... Well either ways, it seems a Herculean task... I never thought that reading Atlas Shrugged would be quite so difficult a task... I am talking difficult of mammoth proportions here... and not because the book is uninteresting...
I knew I wanted to read this book... I had loved 'The Fountainhead'... Couldn't see any reason why I wouldn't want to read this... and complete it... and love it.... My first look at the book though and I got an idea of the impediments ahead... THE SIZE OF THE BOOK!!!! 1000 ODD PAGES!!! Now if I owned the book, I couldn't care less. I'd take an year if I wanted and still read it... The book, however, was brought from Vishwas library... OK given that Vishwas kaka has known me ever since they started the library in Rambaug colony... that I was the youngest member to join the library... that he is one of the only 2 people in the world who is allowed to call me Teju... But come on he definitely wasn't gonna allow me to keep the book for atleast... well I don't know how long this book is gonna take me to read... OK let it be. I had decided to borrow the book, I was gonna start reading it.
So I start the book. From the beginning I couldn't relate to the characters... I couldn't relate to the sort of helplessness people felt... the lack of competition in their hearts... they didn't want to do anything because they felt pleasure in doing it... What is the point of doing something if you feel pleasure in doing it? As Lillian Rearden says... well I am not quoting her but the gist of it was, what is the point of admiring a woman if she is already beautiful, the real compliment is when you tell a woman who is not beautiful that she is beautiful. That is being human. (???!!!!) WHATEVER!!! But that is about how the people in this book think.
The book starts with the words 'Who is John Galt?' I am not sure why these words made me so uncomfortable when I read them, but they did make me uncomfortable... All the more because I couldn't understand what these words meant... Somehow though I couldn't not continue... I wanted to read. If for no other reason than to find who John Galt was and what the words meant. I saw some hope when Dagny was introduced... I could definitely recognise the woman who wanted to find her place in a 'Man's World' of railways... She wanted, all her life, to run the Taggert Transcontinental that her ancestor Nat Taggert had built. She is not afraid of challenges... she thrives on competition.
Her biggest challenge, however, is her brother, James Taggert, who would rather run the railroads to the ground than buy steel from anyone other than Orren Boyle who seems utterly incompetent and lazy, more ready to try and get publicity than really work for producing steel n his factory... Jim is the kind of louse who would rather lose all his money just to find happiness in the fact that his sister is wrong... that she can be anything but right...
Dagny, though, has other plans. She decides to cancel Boyle's order... it has been pending for more than 9 months or so with promises of soon... very soon. She orders the new rails made of Rearden Metal... the metal which is supposed to be lighter and stronger than steel... what Henry Rearden believes would be to steel what steel was to iron. Against all kinds of hardships and public outrage, Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggert fulfil their dream of making the Rio-Norte line made of Rearden Metal a reality... But it isn't called the Rio-Norte line... Jim wouldn't want his precious Taggert Rio-Norte name be allowed to be associated to the infamous line that is being built.. that the public is sure would collapse... The metal.. the line that everyone shuns... Dagny calls it the John Galt line... why not? The name is associated with helplessness... she wants to prove everyone wrong... So that's what it would be named... The first train plied runs at the speed of 100 miles per hour an impossible task till then...
The day the run is successful... suddenly Rearden metal is the most sought after metal... and Hank would definitely run his factory at full capacity to fulfil all those orders if it were not for the 'Equalization of Opportunity' Bill, which doesn't allow him to produce any more metal than any other factory can. Everyone should get an equal right to survive... if he can't produce the metal needed, then others who produce steel would get the opportunity to sell their wares... No matter that the steel produced by Orren Boyle, if it is ever produced that is, couldn't be as good and strong as Rearden metal...
Helplessness reaches new heights or should I say depths of misery when Ellis Wyatt sets fire to his own Oil wells when the Bill makes Dagny reduce the length and speed of her train to those at which other trains can pull and run...
All the great people philosophers, entrepreneurs suddenly disappear... their fortunes gone with them... no one knows where they went... whether they are alive or dead... nobody can or tries trace them...
I have read one third of the book till now. Tomorrow amma will return that book. I just can't find the time to read it on weekdays. I have told her to return it and get it back next weekend. Inspite of the miserable nature of most of the characters... the spirit of Dagny and Hank makes me want to still read the book. I hate leaving a book half read and I won't start with this one... I still have to find 'Who is John Galt.'
I knew I wanted to read this book... I had loved 'The Fountainhead'... Couldn't see any reason why I wouldn't want to read this... and complete it... and love it.... My first look at the book though and I got an idea of the impediments ahead... THE SIZE OF THE BOOK!!!! 1000 ODD PAGES!!! Now if I owned the book, I couldn't care less. I'd take an year if I wanted and still read it... The book, however, was brought from Vishwas library... OK given that Vishwas kaka has known me ever since they started the library in Rambaug colony... that I was the youngest member to join the library... that he is one of the only 2 people in the world who is allowed to call me Teju... But come on he definitely wasn't gonna allow me to keep the book for atleast... well I don't know how long this book is gonna take me to read... OK let it be. I had decided to borrow the book, I was gonna start reading it.
So I start the book. From the beginning I couldn't relate to the characters... I couldn't relate to the sort of helplessness people felt... the lack of competition in their hearts... they didn't want to do anything because they felt pleasure in doing it... What is the point of doing something if you feel pleasure in doing it? As Lillian Rearden says... well I am not quoting her but the gist of it was, what is the point of admiring a woman if she is already beautiful, the real compliment is when you tell a woman who is not beautiful that she is beautiful. That is being human. (???!!!!) WHATEVER!!! But that is about how the people in this book think.
The book starts with the words 'Who is John Galt?' I am not sure why these words made me so uncomfortable when I read them, but they did make me uncomfortable... All the more because I couldn't understand what these words meant... Somehow though I couldn't not continue... I wanted to read. If for no other reason than to find who John Galt was and what the words meant. I saw some hope when Dagny was introduced... I could definitely recognise the woman who wanted to find her place in a 'Man's World' of railways... She wanted, all her life, to run the Taggert Transcontinental that her ancestor Nat Taggert had built. She is not afraid of challenges... she thrives on competition.
Her biggest challenge, however, is her brother, James Taggert, who would rather run the railroads to the ground than buy steel from anyone other than Orren Boyle who seems utterly incompetent and lazy, more ready to try and get publicity than really work for producing steel n his factory... Jim is the kind of louse who would rather lose all his money just to find happiness in the fact that his sister is wrong... that she can be anything but right...
Dagny, though, has other plans. She decides to cancel Boyle's order... it has been pending for more than 9 months or so with promises of soon... very soon. She orders the new rails made of Rearden Metal... the metal which is supposed to be lighter and stronger than steel... what Henry Rearden believes would be to steel what steel was to iron. Against all kinds of hardships and public outrage, Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggert fulfil their dream of making the Rio-Norte line made of Rearden Metal a reality... But it isn't called the Rio-Norte line... Jim wouldn't want his precious Taggert Rio-Norte name be allowed to be associated to the infamous line that is being built.. that the public is sure would collapse... The metal.. the line that everyone shuns... Dagny calls it the John Galt line... why not? The name is associated with helplessness... she wants to prove everyone wrong... So that's what it would be named... The first train plied runs at the speed of 100 miles per hour an impossible task till then...
The day the run is successful... suddenly Rearden metal is the most sought after metal... and Hank would definitely run his factory at full capacity to fulfil all those orders if it were not for the 'Equalization of Opportunity' Bill, which doesn't allow him to produce any more metal than any other factory can. Everyone should get an equal right to survive... if he can't produce the metal needed, then others who produce steel would get the opportunity to sell their wares... No matter that the steel produced by Orren Boyle, if it is ever produced that is, couldn't be as good and strong as Rearden metal...
Helplessness reaches new heights or should I say depths of misery when Ellis Wyatt sets fire to his own Oil wells when the Bill makes Dagny reduce the length and speed of her train to those at which other trains can pull and run...
All the great people philosophers, entrepreneurs suddenly disappear... their fortunes gone with them... no one knows where they went... whether they are alive or dead... nobody can or tries trace them...
I have read one third of the book till now. Tomorrow amma will return that book. I just can't find the time to read it on weekdays. I have told her to return it and get it back next weekend. Inspite of the miserable nature of most of the characters... the spirit of Dagny and Hank makes me want to still read the book. I hate leaving a book half read and I won't start with this one... I still have to find 'Who is John Galt.'
