I see, hear, speak....Well, I write here too..

Notice period..

2008-08-28T09:31:25Z

Day 1 of notice period begins today. After 2 months of unsuccessful desperate job hunting, I gave up looking for jobs, bcos the offers I got were nothing close to what I wanted to work in/with. This one, just came through a friend, and I knew the interview was really going to be disgusting, bcos they ask syntax etc. The first time, they called me 2 months back, I knew their interview pattern, and so didnt bother to reply. Then after repeated calls, I vaguely agreed to meet them, which I didnt bother to confirm.

I managed to abscond on the scheduled day of my interview. Later, bcos this was a friends friend, I apologized sending a mail. Then when he still said, the vacancy was open, I took it up seriously and prepared during the Aug 15th weekend. yes, I wrote every bit of commas, brackets, semi-colons, etc to mug-up the syntax huh .. And know what, at the interview I really goofed up at the beginning with the hello world pgm. hmm. I decided it was not my kind of judging a person, so I didnt co-operate for the rest of the interview.

A week later, I get the offer. Comparing what I do currently and what I want to do in future, this seems to be an intermediate step. So after much thought, I decided to accept the offer. Finally, I am moving a step positively towards what I want in life.

A minute, precious to someone else

2008-08-25T13:06:17Z

Among the 100 to-do things left behind, I picked up calling my credit card customer care as my card was not activated after a replacement. It was quick and there was no confusion, before she let me hang up, she forwarded my call to the feedback center. I usually hung up, but today, I just stayed on the line and it took me less than a minute to dial feedback on her support.

I am unusually feeling happy for her, bcos I am sure, it would have made a difference to her day today, among the other calls which were not rated. I wish, somebody would acknowledge the slog hours I put in too :(

Within that waranty period

2008-08-04T05:03:44Z

My laptop Rishon went into coma yesterday. HDD failure. This was just after my brother asked on Friday if I need to take some backup data from my laptop in case....

Well, my laptop has primarily been a source of data backup, especially when I decided to take a break from work. Unlike my camera , it doesnt get much of importance, though it stores all the junk pics I click with my Canny. And neither does it get coverage on my LJ ! It has been a great help during interviews, which also means, I need to put off further interview plans for some time.

Luckily I checked up the warranty, and it expires only on 28th Sep, 2008. So I am just in-time. I remember the last time, my mobile gave me a charger problem, I was 2 weeks within the warranty expiration period. So I got it replaced freely. Next time I buy anything with a warranty, I would begin looking for problems around the warranty expiration period.

I have been checking good docs for my Rishon. And hence have taken some time off from work since morning, and this would mark the first post from my client desktop. Yay !

Bangalore Photowalk - 4

2008-07-24T17:20:51Z

The only other thing apart from work I do these days, is the Blore Photowalk. Though only once a month, I am glad, I actually do something other than breaking my head at ~~hell~~ office.

Though skthewimp announced the route quite earlier, I actually sat down to note the details only today. For more details pls see here.

Date: 27th July, 2008
Starting time: 8 am
Starting point: Alankar Plaza, Kempe Gowda Road, Gandhinagar, Bangalore 560009
Ending time: Approximately 10:30 am
Ending point: Malleswaram Circle.

And yes, Mihika turns 2 on sunday, the 27th July. This is something we all are looking forward to , bcos Mihika now understands what a birthday is and is anxiously looking forward to blow the candles on the cake. We really have to do a good job to impress the little gal and introduce her to what birthdays mean !

Well, I looked at the posts tagged with Mihika and it seems a long journey with her so far, yet all so soon. And if I had to write about her, this journal wouldnt be enough ! To sum up, in short, she has made all our fears come true, she has even begun asking us to get out of her home, when she is done with her entertainment with us !

Sunday, the 27th July is going to be a really busy day !

Random forced updates

2008-07-16T16:42:01Z

Today I complete exactly 1 month at my new client place. After working for a single client for the past 3+ years, getting used to this client has itself been a tough challenge. The work technically is almost the same, but it has been tougher here, bcos the process is not well organized, and most of the details are passed through word of mouth. And there are 100 more reasons why I love my previous client than any other company and I now think that the so called impression is a fact !

So work ideally beging at 8.30 am and for the first time, I dont have time for LJing during office hours, not even the read mode. Issues keep popping up before I solve one. I intentionally keep my gtalk open in a different workspace, so that I atleast know the people who tried to ping me and I catch up with them later when I get back home, or atleast drop a line ! By the time I come back home, i have just enough time for dinner, clean up and sleep !

Today I am forcing myself to log updates. And I also feel, I need to break in between work and continur Ljing. But these days, I have nothing to crib about or talk about, the only thing I seem to be occupied is, travel travel and travel, So the things which come to my mind are the different bus fares, speeds, time etc. heh. Yesterday I hit my personal record for maximum kms traveled in a single day in bangalore city !

I travel 15 kms and reach office at 8.30 am and while pulling my hair debugging the code and straining my eyes, I notice my contact lens in the right eye has torn. No major damages to the eyes, I remove them safely and travel back home to fetch my new pair. I sit for 5 mins, have the bfast I failed to have earlier and start again to office and I reach at 11,25 am. 15*4 = 60 kms. in 1 day ! I traveled by the Volvo, so saved some strain.

I have also begun liking the Volvo these days. I move away from the vent blowing cold air and there are no more headache complaints. And its comparatively faster and with a better set of co-passengers. However I notice that most of people, transfer their weight onto you while standing. I learnt from a co-worker that the best remedy is to do the same. No amount of excuse-me or stares would help anyways !

As I wrote earlier, I knew I would end up logging about travel ! There are lot of other things which have gone unlogged, which are either hard to recollect or too painful while recollecting ! huh !

Mathing away to kill time

2008-06-28T05:41:59Z

The only thing I seem to notice these days is the travel. Work is catching up, my login and access has been set, and its going to be a regular 8.30 to 5 pm job, so less of LJing and mailing during work hours, bcos my mind is set to wrap up work by 4.30 pm. So when I get home, I am busy cooking, and setting things at home, and catching up with bro and mostly only on Read-only mode on the internet, And on weekends, when I spend time on my LJ, I only remember my travel thoughts ! Warning about the boring math ahead, skip this post !

The AC volvo 335E seems to be the best option to travel to ITPL. Faster, quicker and cooler :) . A little costly though ( Rs 35 ), but a lot cheaper than an auto. The regular ticket is Rs 9 and the frequency is lesser, and if you want to make it faster, it is better to break your travel at Marthahalli/ Kundanahalli and I guess the total costs adds up to Rs 15. There is another bus 335A, which is like a semi deluxe, no pass bus, those steel grey color buses, and the tickets are at 1.5 cost, thats again Rs 14, and I feel right now, thats the best option, wrt to sitting place and a little decent co-travelers, but I am still trying to find out the timings. On the same day, if I am traveling some where else post work, I take the Rs 30 pass, and keep changing buses, it makes my travel faster and cheaper, skthewimp has already made a post on that, so I will skip the cost part on that.

I tried going by the AC volvo couple of times, I ended up either having a headache, bcos I didnt dry my wet hair and got into the AC directly. Secondly not all seats are comfortable for leg spaces, I am not sure about the back rows, but in the front, only the first rows are the best with enough leg space, the second and third rows facing each other is a lot of struggle unless you are facing a puny little thing opposite you :) So right now, paying Rs 35 is not a good option for Ms Long_legs !

Now the math and frequency part. While I keep traveling, I do some idle calculations looking at the frequent number of AC buses traveling on the opposite route. I decided to calculate the timing between 2 buses. However I was also moving, so I thought it was going to be difficult to reach to a proper formula. I still managed to collect samples of data. And to make calculations simpler, I am averaging some of the values.

1) I see an AC 335E every 10-12 mins on the opposite route. so lets average it to 10 mins.
2) Lets assume both the AC on the opposite road and the non-AC bus I am traveling are almost at the same speed x km/hr, thanks to bangalore traffic, the pick up doesnt really matter, unless you have an empty road ahead !

Before using formulas, I understood I didnt need any formula bcos I am using the same speed for both buses. So if I meet an AC bus AC1 at a point A and meet another bus AC2 at point B after 10 mins. It means When I am at point B, I have travelled for 10 mins, and the first AC bus AC1 has traveled 10 mins ahead from point A. So totally the time difference between AC1 and AC2 would be time travelled from A to B and time travelled from A to AC1's current point.

Thats 10 + 10 = 20 mins between AC1 and AC2.

Now using the formula way.

Speed = X km/hr
Distance traveled by AC1 in 10 mins is X/6 Kms
Distance traveled by my bus to meet AC2 in 10 mins is X/6 kms.

So total distance between AC1 and AC2 is X/6 + X/6 = X/3 kms.
So for time between AC1 and AC2 is Distance/ Speed = X/3 / X = 1/3 hr = 20 mns Gottcha !

Now the same formula can be extended if Speeds are different for the AC and regular buses.
AC 1 and AC2 -> X km/hr
Regular bus -> Y km/hr

Distance traveled by Ac1 is X/6 Kms
Distance traveled by regular bus is Y/6 kms.
Total distance is X/6 + Y/6
Spped of AC2 is X So time is X+Y / 6X

This can be extended for irregular time difference between buses and doing the math accordingly. And a nice way to idle time on a slow moving traffic. I didnt use any paper while on the bus, and with noise and people pushing around, it was a task to get my concentration on the numbers, I am happy, with no work for a long time, my grey cells havent withered out yet !

ps: all assumptions are based on knowing the speed of the bus, which a normal traveler wouldnt know. this is just a calculation to pass time.

Bangalore Photowalk - 3

2008-06-23T13:15:58Z

So the 4 weeks after the 2nd photowalk did really fly soon, its time for the third one on 29th June.

Date: 29th June 2008, Sunday
Time: 8 am to 10 am
Starting point: Intersection of Brigade Road and Residency Road.
Ending point: Intersection of Brigade Road and Residency Road.

For more details, pls click here.

I wanted to post this earlier, thanks to my no-login, no-access status at the new client place, and the long travel to and from whitefield, I couldnt do a decent job of posting this information earlier. Hope to see a few of my LJ friends there.

Unfortunately, Rash would be out of town, and she was actually interested in the MG road area, bcos she feels the roadscape wouldnt be the same once the Metro is done. I hope she is able to make it with last minute cancellations on her schedule. After the second photowalk, I felt we needed to have more frequent walks, i.e on alternate weekends. 4 weeks was something long I couldnt wait, so I decided even if there was nothing officially arranged, I would walk a few areas around and click pictures that fascinated me. Eventually, that didnt happen, guess what, you need company to do something like this and thats when I realized the importance of the group !

The math of reward points

2008-06-12T06:30:00Z

Though initially I had many credit cards, thanks to the unwelcomed telephonic marketing, I usually use only 1 card, one of the reasons being to accumulate reward points. I have not redeemed any though so far. I had a good number of points with my SBI card until a fraud transaction and canceled my card then. Well, I guess the points can be claimed still. Luckily they also credited back that 25K into my account. Now I remember that I need to check if they withdrew the points for that 25K !

The other card I use now, is my ICICI, bcos I have a ICICI banking account and its easy to pay my bill online. Also its nice to access everything in one login. HDFC is my salary account and I use it to transfer funds into my ICICI. In SBI, I got 1 point for every Rs 40 spent compared to ICICI 2 points for every Rs 200. Thats a 5:2 ratio. I remember checking the reward catalogue sometime before, redemption was fair enough, bcos to redeem an almost same item, say a tupperware item, I needed more points on a SBI compared to my ICICI. Fair enough ! Again, one more action item, I need to check if that was on 5:2 ratio as well.

ICICI has outsourced its reward points to imint these days. When I logged into imint earlier, I was disappointed bcos they didnt have many of the products I wanted and had shortlisted on the ICICI reward catalogue. I was also angry with ICICI that they auto transferred the reward points to imint without asking my preference. Well, as these days, I have plenty of time at my disposal, I prefered to explore imint rather than fighting with ICICI customer support. Tehy seem to be improving on the choices.

Well this post was actually to get some clarity into something I observed on ICICI rewards catalogue. They still have gift vouchers, I guess you can redeem them before they actually auto - transfer to imint. And I was surprised that there was some difference wrt to the brands. Like for an example as below,

Sr. No.	Gift Code	Description	Points
1	PN9999	Pantaloons Gift Voucher Worth Rs.250/-	450
2	SR0301	Big Bazaar Gift Voucher Worth Rs.250/-	400
3	RT0301	Shoppers Stop Gift Voucher Worth Rs.500/-	1075
4	RT0401	Westside Gift Voucher Worth Rs.500/-	1075
5	RT0701	Wills Lifestyle Gift Voucher Worth Rs.250/-	920
6	AP0204	Arrow Gift Voucher Worth Rs.500/-	1125
7	AP0403	Reebok Gift Voucher Worth Rs.500/-	999

On a rough calculation, I would pick up the Big bazaar voucher for Rs 250 per 400 points and buy some groceries or toiletries rather than go for something like Wills Rs 250 per 920 points. The value for other brands are also not rational. Come to think of it, I would calculate, to redeem maximum Rupees per Reward point rather than go for something like brands. Paisa Vasool.

Or am I missing something here on the calculation or logic ?

June - The month of bday babies !

2008-06-10T05:06:19Z

I do not have the exact numbers here, but randomly looking up at my orkut as well as LJ's friends bdays, I feel most of my friends' bdays fall in June. The bday reminders on both orkut and LJ are flooded.

I do not have the habit of wishing friends when I am reminded through a tool. Its just that I dont feel my wish worth it, bcos I really do not remember their bdays. I only wish people whose bdays I remember on my own. It gives me a better significance of their bdays. Its nothing to do with closeness, but still some bdays are never forgotten. I usually remember bdays, bcos when I begin a day, I usually recollect the date and check my cache randomly to know if anyone was born on that day. So even a distant friend, whom I may not be talking too, also gets remembered. However there are friends too, for whom I plan gift, card, cake etc and of course expect treat also. There are instances when there are no bdays on a particular day, and I am reminded of a bday nearing up ,say in a week, and I exactly forget on that day. And I also get confused with bdays, especially the June one, I pinged one of my friends on chat last week, to check if her bday was on 10th or 15th. She replied with some %^$&! and followed by 15.

Since I started the bday topic here and I looked up at the reminder on my LJ home page, I take this opportunity to wish navya and ssheidi a great bday and year ahead !

And for those of you who have some time, take this up as a meme, and reply with which month do you think majority of your friends are born. I remember teemus having a tool for sun signs on his page.

AOL postponed by few hours

2008-06-10T04:53:09Z

Vee and I had doubts if we would ever make it to the 6 am class for Art of living at Jeevan Bhima Nagar. With Vee's unpredictable schedules at work, an evening class would be risky. And to reach at 6 am sharp, we would atleast have to start by 5 - 5.15 am. These are teh crisis times, I feel, knowing to drive/ride would have been a bonus ! All other times, my nataraja ( nata - walk in Tamil ) services does the job quite well.

As it would be unsafe for either of us to walk alone, I successfully request bro to drop me at Vee's place at 5 am, so that we could walk together ! We run and reach the destination and our kind humble instructor explains to us the number games and requested us to join the evening batch. Not wanting to further postpone our plans, we decide to go in for the evening class.

Its 6.30 and we walk back from Jeevan Bhima Nagar to Vee's home,( CMH-Weekender). We call up Vee's mom and tell her that the instructor felt we were enlightened souls already and need not have to attend the class ! We walk back laughing and joking about our first failure though we are yet determined to master the art of living.

The weather has been co-operative and we decided to walk to office too after some tea and snacks. So I dedicate today as my walking day fo the year. Yeah, we plan to walk to and back from the class later today evening too. I hope we are not heading to something drastic instead of art of living :)

Rs 3 BMTC ticket !

2008-06-09T05:11:43Z

Today, I traveled on a Rs 3 ticket on a BMTC after a really long time. When I gave him Rs 5, I knew, either I would be getting Rs 2 in return without the ticket or a Rs 5 ticket. Surprisingly, the conductor handed over a Rs 3 ticket and Rs 2 as change.

I actually assumed all these days, that the Rs 3 ticket no longer exists, every time the conductor just took Rs 3 and I shamelessly traveled ticketless, I thought the conductor was just making an additional income bribing me with a share. I knew , together with the conductor, I was looting the govt on a 60-40% basis. But I never dared to question him, one being I didnt know the language too well to explain things in a polite way and secondly I didnt want to explicitly broadcast that I was an outsider while trying to explain in either English/Hindi ! My brother however says, in addition to looting, this Rs 2 I get in return is an additional income for which I pay no tax ! Crime on crime.

Another irritating thing is they never return change, and its more embarrasing when you have to ask them for Re1 back for a Rs 9 ticket. They look down at you. To avoid any dialogue, I usually make sure, I have actually Rs 4 as change, so everytime I require change in return, I give some additional change to sum up and get Rs 5 back. Usually the conductors dont run short of Rs5, even worse, they cant abuse for asking Rs 5 in return.

I love the Rs 30 daily pass though, unlimited travel with luxury of no transactions with the conductors. I usually travel on a Rs 30 pass on weekends, it turns out cheaper !

ps: I checked up the BMTC site here -> http://www.bmtcinfo.com/english/passes.htm , they do have a Rs 3 ticket for the first 2 kms !

Second time failure !

2008-06-06T08:59:41Z

Almost an year and I haven't made any progress on the Haemoglobin !
mv http://aneeta-04.livejournal.com/140648.html to current post !

Only difference being, I sat with Vee for the whole procedure ! She is richer by an extra certificate ! I seriously have to work towards boosting my haemoglobin ! tch tch

In other news, i have sprained/twisted my neck and most of the operations are still functional, eating, reading, talking, sleeping etc, except for crossing roads, I cant turn my head to double check for traffic!!

A mixed day

2008-06-05T06:21:02Z

Yesterday was one eventful funny mixed day. Began with waking up at 6 am ! I head to CMH road for a brisk walk to drop a cheque. I also planned to withdraw money from ICICI ATM and buy some vegetables on the way back. I reach the ATM in 30 minutes, drop the cheque and withdraw the money. The card gets stuck in the ATM. I look around and try the phone in the ATM, no use. I inform the security guard standing out and rush home to call up the customer support. Though I had planned to walk back, I took a BMTC back to reach home. Seems, I cant have more than one card at a time, I get a replacement for my credit card, now the debit card is gone.

Then I reach work, and idle aorund, planning how to spend the remaining part of the day. At 11.30, I hear the speakers on the floor requesting everyone to shut down their PCs. I was surprised, that there was some thing like a power failure, in a building occupied by many companies. Before I could understand what was happening, I could hear people moving out.

I call up Vee, and we decide to sit in my cube, as we were sure the pantry and cafeteria would be occupied beyond occupancy. We spend the remaining time, talking about college days and our first job searches etc . After 4-5 hours of waiting and many people moving out of the office, we too decide to leave office by 4 pm. I realized yesterday that to sit idle at work is possible, but to sit idle without a pc and internet is next to impossible !

We plan to walk down to Jeevan Bhima Nagar to inquire about the Art of living course. After walking for 1 hour and getting details about the program, we plan our next stop. We are tired and break to have some Chaat. There was yet something we wanted to do, and I suggested we just take a left and walk a little more and have an ice cream at Corner House. It has been Vee's long time desire to have ice cream at corner house.

We reach there and head for Hot Chocolate fudge. We sit quietly, not wanting to be interrupted and enjoy the ice cream. After accomplishing our task, we call up Rash working at the client office, to make her envious ! Then we walk back to Domlur and Vee takes a bus and I reach home walking. I am totally drained, and I lay on my bed thinking about the long walk -> CV Raman Nagar -> Tipasandra -> Jeevan Bhima Nagar -> Kodihalli -> Airport Road -> Domlur !

I manage to get the dinner set. However my nerves werent working in co-ordiation and I spill some cooking oil while transferring it to the can. I assure myself, thinking about sdeepthi 's post when she spilled nearly 1 litre of oil. I decide to call it a day, so after clearing up the mess and not wanting to try any more adventures/ mis-adventures, I retire to sleep.

Btw, Corner House rocks and nothing beats them !

Bangalore Photowalk -2

2008-06-02T03:43:28Z

So I did join the photowalk on June 1st. Though I had asked Rash to give me a wake up call at 6 am, I kept snoozing the alarm from 5 am wondering when she would call me. Finally I called her at 6.15 to realize she was still dreaming. Though it was still good enough to make it at 7.30 am, Rash suggested we go by her bike instead of BMTC. Well, sunday morning empty roads and Rash's bike was an added bonus, we reached JC road from Domlur in less than 10 mins. The walk kicked off just soon after we reached, though we missed the group introductions.

Unusually though, I was not at my best self, I lacked the interest to take pictures, or even extend my social network , I was keen on meeting and knowing many of them. I felt my head getting heavy and later realized I had actually caught a cold. I also didnt upload any of my pictures, as I dont find them that interesting as I expected. Some of the other photowalkers have uploaded their pictures here. Some of mine are anipin, I didnt upload redundant picctures, especially when there is a better pic taken by somebody else.

Thanks to the pleasant weather, the walk was really enjoyable. Infact, while Rash and I got back to pick up her vehicle, we had a contrast environment. We wondered how the roads were empty, clean and beautiful just 2 hours back ! We also enjoyed the peek into the central Jail campus across the compound wall, till a security guard came running to chase us away. The breakfast was also good and refreshing at Kamat Yatri Nivas. I hope to get to know people better in the next photowalks.

The next photowalk is scheduled for the last week of June. I hope many of my other LJ friends try to make it, so an advance notice here.

Weekend activities

2008-05-29T05:40:49Z

Reminder for Bangalore Friends ! Other friends are welcome to Bangalore !

Saturday -> Visit http://www.summersaltfest.com/ to know if anything would suit your interests and taste! Yes, amazing food also available ! Check out ! I liked the website itself, I also checked the Origami website, really creative and cool. I hope its a perfect summer chillout !

Sunday -> Bangalore photowalk - 2. Detailed post here.

Wish every weekend was as eventful !

Interviews and punctuality

2008-05-28T14:39:02Z

The last time, I really moved jobs was 3+ years back. And I wasnt really looking for a shift then and I was just 2+ years experienced. But then I had to choose between a long term onsite work which was more of co-ordination or shift to something more technical. So when I got the current job, I didnt do much homework on the figures and moved into Bangalore, actually without any hike.

Work was good enough to keep the drive going, the frustrations about being paid low came now and then, but somehow the feeling of satisfaction and hopes of building a heavier resume held me back. Now, with lot of changes and need of adaptability, I am again in the job market. The experience so far has been good, I am learning from mistakes, exploring answers for questions I didnt know, learning to say No to offers not suitable etc.

It has been good so far, until today evening, I had an appointment for a 5pm tele interview and just 10 mins before the schedule, they call to say, it is postponed to 6 pm. Though, I am little annoyed that I left work at 1530 just to attend this call at 1700, I didnt think too much into the issue. Its 1950 and though I have not been seriously waiting, I am annoyed.

I do not have much experience in the international recruitment industry, but for the 2 months I tried for jobs in UK, I sense a complete different scenario there compared to how recruitment is done here.

Firstly consultants there are more professional, they make sure there is no duplication of profiles with the client. Even if by mistake, there is any, they make sure and take time to resolve it in a cordial way, till then further process on the candidature is kept on hold. So, apart from the consultant, the candidate also makes sure, he doesnt want to send multiple copies of his resume through more than one agent and get his process stalled. Here, it is totally different, even if you tell them, you have already applied, they beg, plead, and convince you to give an alternate email id, so that they can upload your profile on the database. I honestly have 6-7 copies of my profile for one of the companies. I havent received any calls either.

Secondly, the consultant takes extra effort to schedule the process of the interview. They also send reminders and call up in advance before the interview as well as call you up after the interview to get the initial feedback from your end. Here, most of the consultants call you up at odd hours, and even if you tell them to call you up later, they are persistent with their 3-questions -current CTC, expected CTC,and notice period, so that they can send your resume asap. Many times, I have cursed myself for putting up my profile on job sites, and have been tempted to pull them out. Some times, I have also cut annoying consultants phone calls. The best way is to get referred by friends, this way you know the kind of work, people etc

Thirdly, regarding the interview process, I attended only 1 interview there, and I really enjoyed 4.5 hours of my personal interview. Well I am biased about the company, so I might be a little partial, however I have got similar feedbacks from people trying for jobs there too. The interview is basically a meduim to understand what you know and how capable you are to fit into their kind of work. Also a means to test your aptitude to understand if you can handle run time surprises. Here, its mostly exam oriented, they test your skills and how well you know the definitions. If you are prepared, then you are in. If there are 2-3 colleagues who attended the interview before you, its almost sure you are getting the job, the questions and people seldom change.

And most annoying, not everybody follows time here. And that triggered this post now. yawn..
Pls add more frustrating things about interviews here.

Tranings and doubts

2008-05-27T05:21:13Z

One of things I hate about trainings is that most of them do not come to learn anything new, they have an agenda to ask complicated questions and out-smart each other. I am open to hear queries and doubts people get, sometimes very interesting scenarios are brought out.

But most of the times, when one person would start with a question, there would 10 questions following it, with various permutations of either the variable names, or the sequence of statements. I keep wondering if they really want to know the answer, or does this give them a sense of accomplishment. I like it when the trainers, tell them on the face, to check it out during thelab sessions. Unfortunately, there still exist, some persistent trouble makers, who give the trainer back, saying , "why dont u check it out too, it would be useful for your next class" .

I could do nothing. Just sigh and think about college times, when we did this to lecurers who came unprepared. I think the best way to act on this problem is to take the repeated questions offline on a 1-1 basis or interested_parties basis. What happens usually, repeat questions eat away into the class timings and in turn into the lab hands-on time, there are people who get late to return home, for no fault of theirs. Let people who have enough time and nerve to trouble the trainers, sit behind post class hours. Unfortunately, when we planned this on the final day of the training, nobody stayed back, the training room was empty by 6 pm.

The week which passed by

2008-05-26T06:55:26Z

It began as a dull gloomy day. Mom was here for 2 weeks until yesterday. Every day as I rushed to work, I managed to answer most of her queries and innocent questions. For the past 2 weeks, I was almost late for my bus to work everyday. Today I missed all those chatter in between pressing my clothes, combing my hair etc. The home was empty today, and after bro left for work, I was missing Mumma a lot. To part with togetherness is a dreadful pain.

After Diamonds, now its time to pamper myself on my hair. But, I think I over did this extravagance this time. 6K down the drain along with my hair. Plans to straighten my hair isnt going too well, I get shocked every now and then, seeing myself in the mirror. I miss my original rusty hair now ! Booh, and now its a long list of added expenses to maintain this. I however, promised myself before I entered the salon, that I wouldnt be cribbing about the aftermath. Period.

God didnt like my over indulgence and I misplaced my credit card somewhere. Panicked I canceled my card today morning. The new card would take a week to be delivered. Which means, its natural break for my expenses. I also left the debit card for my salary account back home in chennai. So all these weeks here, I have been transferring money to my ICICI account for which I have a debit card here, and for over indulgence I use my credit card. The transfer to ICICI account is like an expense monitor, bcos everytime I transfer 5K, I know what I am doing with it. And now I toned down the amount to 3K every transaction.

Seems I will get into a new project account. This should keep me busy ahead. Have had enough trouble with my idle brain ! Btw, I changed the user pic, I loved the earlier one, the passing waves always gave me a feeling of being refreshed. Something like, you write, pour out your thoughts here and move forward. Another user on my list has recently started using the same icon, and I myself get confused seeing my friends page. And for the need of uniqueness on my friends friend's page, I shifted to this one, till I find something as fascinating !

Bangalore Photo Walk - 2

2008-05-21T06:03:38Z

After missing the first photo walk, am all set for the next one. Wanted to share this info with my fellow friends, for more details, please see here.

I take this as a good opportunity to start some real photography with my camera, and also to meet some of my fellow LJ friends. It has been quite some time, I actually met my LJ buddies. I had earlier planned for a weekend to Gopalswamy betta wth some of my non-Lj friends, thankfully, they have also shown interest in the photowalk and agreed to postpone the trip, and also committed to share their time with me that day, hopefully they also will be there.

Walking has always been my hobby, but I used to do it aimlessly, like, earlier when I was in Koramnagala, I have walked couple of times during the weekend, from Koramngala to Shivaji Nagar. I used to start early, by 6 am and I really loved the empty roads all for myself. Especially, it was a delight to see an almost empty Brigade road ! I never carried my camera then, bcos I was shy. And major part of my walking, was spent on lost thoughts !

I am happy, I would be doing something little different this time.

aneeta_04 @ 2008-05-16T12:22:00

2008-05-16T07:17:12Z

This year seems good for most of my friends in love. I know atleast 4 pairs who had been waiting for a long time to get their marriage approved by families, are now either married or getting married soon. I am happy for them, to finally witness the fruit of their long painful wait !

On the personal front, I am much better off now, I am getting back to normal and focusing on things to make myself feel good. Like last weekend, I just went out and bought a Diamond ring and a pair of Diamond studs. They arent that bright or gaudy, I wanted some simple ones so that I can wear them daily without the fear of losing something very costly. Diamond being my lucky stone, is indeed bringing some positive energy or rather this thought keeps me thinking positive. Atleast I am not thinking about my credit card bills right now !

Mom is staying with bro and me for some days. Unfortunately she got sick and she is recovering now. With mom here, I am trying to learn and expand my cooking skills. I manage cooking without a mixer usually, i.e I do not take pains to actually do the real cooking. Now the mixer here is in full use :) And mom says, I should get a hand blender and do things the traditional way, it would taste better and current_independent !

Though I earlier mentioned in one of my posts, not to forgive people, I realize I fail to hate people. I end up praying for the person who caused me so much pain to realize the mistake and get back to me. This is not ego either, I actually tried to get back to the person, mush against the advice of my friends and family. But the person is unapologetic and least bothered. Finally it hurts to realize that you were nothing to the person in the first place.

Sitting on bench - 1

2008-04-24T07:20:39Z

3 days have been long ones and I am upgrading myself each day in learning new ways to pass time. Thankfully, the IT guys here havent gone much into blogging, so livejournal access is not restricted. ( *touchwood* )

I have a landline with a voice mailbox service, which I havent used for the past 3.5 years I have been here. But today, when I saw the red light indicating new msgs, I was curious to hear the messages left, if any ! First I had to reset my password, as I havent done this in so many years.

fter getting the setup done, I begin with the first message, which is on March 5th from Rash ! I wonder why Rash has called me on 5th march, when she knows I am out of office. I go on with a couple of more, and I get confused, until I hear May 9th and I realize these msgs are of 2007!

If I setup this system, I would do it on a LIFO basis instead of FIFO, bcos I am more worried about the recent most msgs ! May be in this situation, I may not be worried about older msgs, bcos I know they are older than a year ! On second thoughts, perhaps FIFO would be the ideal one, the msg left earlier needs to be attended to first!

Most of the people here, dont have the habit of leaving a msg, bcos none of us here open voice mail boxes. So, when I browsed through msgs, they were mostly from colleagues and managers from my client plce, and it was a nice journey of recap of project status happening a year back !

I deleted many of the msgs, except few from my client, bcos it gives me a nice feeling to realize the extent of hectic work I had earlier ! Other msgs were from these advertizing companies and were mostly blank.

A couple of msgs were without a name left, so I had a guess_who game set all for myself, I couldnt recognize the voices, and the extension numbers were also hardly recollectable. I tried digging my brain as to what was said to me on Nov 11th,2007 and guessing who that could be ! Then I lookup at the ext number in the telephone directory and check if my guess right.

I finally found out that the total messages which can be stored is 35. So I didnt receive any messages after nov 16th, 2007.
Now I have cleared voice mailbox and looking for other time pass stuff

life gears up

2008-04-24T03:47:51Z

9 am , am at home browsing and Ljing.. These people got me back to blore and put me on buffer without active projects and with a pc with limited net access and worst, I am seated in another floor and dont have access to my machine in my client area. Looks like a punishment and as if they have put me in an isolation camp.

The only time I get to meet known people is during lunch. Though an over friendly person, I am holding back making friends in this floor. I want to be away from the junta here and planning a quick and quiet exit.

Meanwhile, though content with a normal boring day, close buddies do not want to give up and made it to home with a Bday cake to have a belated celebration. Looks like the cake-cutting will never go out of my life, and yes this year this was finally a surprise unlike the last 2 years.

And though other things in life were getting miserable, I forgot to update that I did make a brownie successfully ! Sholi, a good friend helped me with the process, the key ingredient she taught me to add was patience which I didnt have earlier, so with the auto on and off of the oven, we baked the cake for nearly 1 hour !

ps: bad cake image, I need to crop the first pic :(

A real birth day !

2008-04-21T19:08:46Z

For people who took pains in wishing me through LJ, I dedicate this post to update my present status. I have been truthful to my journal. But for the past couple of months, I have been going through unexpected incidents/trauma, which I intentionally failed to record.

This bday has not been like earlier years,and worst being, its one of my lowest points in life, where I am depressed personally, professionally and almost dont have anything to look forward to. I was hoping for the whole day to just pass. The day did pass, but I want to record this period in my life, bcos I am sure, one day ahead when I read this entry, I would pat myself for having sailed through this period.

Gist of the bday day !
- Back in Blore, had to join back work, bcos they changed the leave policy.
- No bday cakes, all of the buddies out of town, they didnt expect me to be in town.
- No phone, as I dont have a local number yet.
- reach office and client access card does not work, so no cubicle, no landline, and no PC.. which means no Gmail access either
- severe headache, and manage to have dinner.
- people whom you trust for a lifetime, just turn their backs away and you get to learn a bitter lesson not to forgive them, even if it means, you are all alone rest of your life. When they dont care about you, flush them out of your life, it is painful, but then it shall also pass.

Good things
- Have wonderful parents and family, whom you can always turn to.
- Have wonderful friends, the sweet call of 20 month old Mihi, calling me Ninni... is priceless.
-even if frends reach the town at 11 pm, they make it a point to come home to personally wish you.
- life is still beautiful, there are lot of things, one has to learn to accept and cherish !

I am born again today, I am discovering my identity, I never knew what I wanted to be, I wanted to be what others wanted me to be. Today, I find myself all alone, and I have plenty of things to choose from what life has to offer. I just got richer,bcos I discovered what I didnt know I could have.

Traffic Monitoring

2007-12-21T09:08:01Z

To know why the IT helpdek has not attended to your service call or to find out if they have too many calls, just log in another call after an hour and check how many calls are registered in an hour !

At 13:15 -> my call ticket number -> 33958
At 14:36 -> 33959

Both call numbers are hopefully in Decimal number system.

Its the last working day of the year and everybody is too busy to raise calls or to attend to calls ! Huh !

Pasword woes !

2007-12-21T06:49:04Z

I always wondered how long does it take to get accustomed to a newly changed password ! Its mandatory that we change passwords at work every 90 days and we dont have control over the new password and the tool generously gives a combo of all possible permutations which are difficult to register.

I usually choose passwords which have a sequence and not having too many mixes of Capital and lower letters with numbers, some of my earlier passwords are nhhto525, madd78YL, 3Vaeqcmx etc, unlike some like these, qHqgrYb8, LtoH8aJk, JEfECf62 which are hard to type out in the first place.

The first week after I change my password, I never get the password right in the first attempt, I usually type the older password and I keep instructing my mind to train, to the new password. And then the pattern gets registered after few days. I also observed that, in such cases when you dont choose the password yourself, and when somebody officially needs to use your machine, you cant spell your password to them, I can spell all my personal email id passwords, but I cant spell nor sms my work password, bcos I need the keyboard to rework on the sequence of letters ! Hmm.

Now, today I changed my work password and I am away on a long leave, this is the first time, I mailed my own password ( to a personal id ), bcos I am sure I am not going to register this that soon !