When I was in my teens I always wondered how my life would turn in the later stages of my life and how many friends I would make, etc. Looking back at all these years, in fact I made few good friends and just like I thought life was a mix of ups and downs. For long time I had this desire to put it here in my own words to express what I've been feeling for quite a while. Most of the times when I talk to one of good friends, I always tell him that engineering days were the best part of my life. So, I'm going to write down about all the characters, including me, here.
Where did you spend most of your childhood? What kind of question is that? Yeah. Everyone spends their childhood days with their parents. Right? This guy didn't. He spent his childhood with lot of kids of his age. People always told him they thought that he would never leave his mother even to go to school. Even his mother thought that he would have tough time leaving her. In fact, when she tried to send him to school, he resisted so hard she decided not to send him until he was six years old. Not sure how it happened, but some how just like any other kid he had to go to school.
His house was little bit away from the village. Living next to rice mill was not a pleasant thing. But this kid never noticed it. For him the entire world was that rice mill. What else? There were two families living there. Both families owned the rice mill. Since one is not allowed to build rice mills close to villages, they had to live away from the village.
The house was built in late 1970's. It had two big rooms. First one was used as a place to sleep and keep clothes, etc. The second room was called God room. No one knows why God wanted one big room. Kid never understood the concept of giving that entire place to God since he always thought single person wouldn't need that big room. He never knew that it would puzzle him very much in the later stages of his life. He didn't know that it would take long time to understand the concept of God.
This house had veranda in front of these two rooms. The top of the house was covered with special thin bricks. The top of the veranda was covered with long wrinkly plates. The open place in front of the house was filled with blue stones which looked like big blue slates.
Finally, when he turned 7, he had to go to school along with his cousins. This kid never liked the idea of spending most of the day in the shabby school. He had to walk almost a mile to go to school. He always enjoyed looking at the small brook going through the village, when ever he walked to school. Sometimes, he even stood next to the brook to see the swirling flow of water. He was always amazed at the way this brook gets filled in no time during the rainy season. When ever his elders asked him not to look at the brook, he couldn't understand the logic behind it. The reason they gave never satisfied this kid. They told him that it would make him unconscious if he looked at it for long time. He proved it to himself that it was wrong as nothing happened to him after staring at the water for long time. In fact, he always thought that it was the beautiful thing to look at. It was full of water. It seemed aggressive trying to reach it'd final destiny. This small brook made him interested in knowing more about the oceans, when ever teachers talked about them. He was always curious to know how big they could be.
The other interesting thing he noticed while going to school was bus-stand. It was next to bridge on the brook. People always sit on the bridge and talk to each other. Most of the village people were farmers. Early in the morning, all these farmers or other people who want to go to towns go to this bus-stand and wait for the buses. In a way it was a nice place to go through. Being a kid, it always interested him to look at all those pepperments and some other eatables in those small shops. The most interesting thing at that point of time was an ice. When ever he had some money like 10 paise, he went for this ice, which is nothing but just plain ice put on some small stick. It was a favorite for kids. He was no different. Then the special thing to buy when he had 25 paise was milk ice. The name it self suggest what it was.
The other parts of the bus-stand were occupied by cool-drink shops, hotels, hair-saloon shops, etc. It had 3 main small time hotels. All these hotels served breakfast, lunch and dinner. The main business for these hotels was breakfast items. Being the center of many villages around it, it always had tonnes of people early in the mornings. People always wanted to go to the next town Atmakur, 15km away from it, as early in the morning as possible so that they could come back early in the evening after finishing their work. This town is the only place which had big hospitals, cinema theaters and other important stores for farmers. This kid was always excited to hear something about this small town.
The three hotels were run by three Muslim families. Most of the other shops also belonged Muslims. This kid always thought that the only thing Muslims could do was having small shops like the ones in the bus-stand. He was interested in only two stores. Being a kid from the family owing rice mill, every one in the bus-stand knew him. He always felt shy to go through the bus-stand for unknown reason. It was funny to see the owners of the hotels competing to get the people into hotels. Eventually, he understood that owners of those hotels hated each other.
Finally, after walking past the bus-stand, this kid had to walk for another five to ten minutes before he reached the school. He always liked the place where the school was built. It was surrounded by lot of trees. This school has lot of open space to play the games. It even had some place with full of sand. This school had one big room and the roof was covered with concrete which always looked like it was going to fall down any minute. This school was for 1st-5th grade students. 1st and 2nd grade students sit out side in the veranda and other grade students sit inside. It had two teachers. Head master used to take classes for higher grades. The other teacher used to attend lower grades.
This kid always waited for the evenings so that he could go back home. The other best part of the day for him was interval breaks. It used to be for 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, all the kids used to run to the play ground and some of them used to go to trees next to the brook. One of those trees had very small sized fruits which kids called red-ink fruits. The reason they called them with that name is that these fruits made the mouths of kids very red after chewing them. Kids always loved the idea of chewing them and fight like actors in the movies and fall down to the ground with mouth bleeding.
After learning how to write and read in Telugu, the school was no more fun for this kid. He always thought that he could all that they teach in the school on his own. In fact, he never paid attention to those teachers. But one thing that made this kid extremely curious was reading all those books. Once he knew how to read them, he finished all those books with in no time and then the school was boring. But the best part that comes with knowing how to read was news papers. Waiting for the news paper to come was the most painful and at the same time most sweetest thing he could feel. At a age where he could understand the small things happening in the world, the news paper was the best thing that could happen to him.
Eventually, when ever he found some novels or some books, he got into them so much that he couldn't notice what was going around him. Soon, he was known as the bright kid to everyone. First time this kid understood that he would be treated well among the other kids as long as he did well in the school.
to be continued ...
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Change of feelings
I came to Los Angeles in the first week of this month in search of better future. May be not. Let me put it this way. When I was in Burlington, I felt that nothing was happening in my life. So, I wanted to change it and hence moved to LA. Like I wrote in my last blog, it's like being thrown into hell. At least, for a while this was my impression. Now, this feeling is slowly wearing off. First week, I spent all my time looking for a place and buying some stuff needed to live here some what ok life if not comfortably.
When I was in Burlington, most of the time I was stuck to my computer and it was like I was addicted to internet. Or you could say that internet was the only friend I had. Then, finally after moving to LA I couldn't put my hands on the key board for a quite a while. I definitely loved it. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I, finally, felt like I was doing some other things apart from spending all my time on computer.
Ok. Now, I'm coming to main point of today's blog. After first week of my stay in LA, I went for three different hikes in the last 2 weeks. I didn't finish the first one. I mean we had problems in finding the right trail. Some how, almost it took 2 hours to find the trail and by that time it was almost evening. Still, we decided to go for it. Finally, some where after walking for 2 hours we felt like we lost the trail and so decided to come back. Best part of this hiking was the feeling I had through out the hike. It was completely outside the city into the valley of trees and streams. Most of the hike was covered by shade and so it was not that difficult. I could say that it was moderate. There were lots of mosquitoes and gnats, etc through out the hike. Then, we understood we had to get some mosquito repellent. Anyway, we walked back with out finishing it. Best part of the hike was it was only two of us doing it. Since it was week day there were no people at all. Sometimes you feel like escaping from everyone in this world. I am sure you know what I'm talking about it. Some times you feel very frustrated and you don't feel peaceful at all in your mind. You feel like running away from everything. At that point, best thing to do is doing something which doesn't require any brains. I guess in my opinion hiking is the best solution.
For long time, I had this feeling that these western people hike since they don't know how it feels like living in small places filled with natural beauty. I mean, for example in India I was born in a small village and it was amazing place in it's own way. We were four kids walking everywhere around that village into the forest. I even remember climbing trees and jumping from tree to tree as part of the games. We used to go into forests and look for some small fruits called regu pallu. I don't know the name of these fruits in English, but I can say one thing for sure that they are not here in this part of the world. I can say that it was pretty much hiking into woods with out knowing that it was. I mean I didn't know damn anything like hiking until I came to USA. What I'm trying to say is here in this western world even if you live in small place it just looks like modernized place. It is like you have these modern stores and all other crazy modern life things you see these days. Where as in India, once you go away from cities you don't see anything like this anymore and it just feels like you are walking into some other world. I guess this is the reason here people love to hike as it makes them feel like they are away from all the confusion and stress the one has to face in day to day life.
I guess I'm no different. I know it's funny for me to say that I'm stressed out even though I'm not working. That is totally another story. If I start writing about that, I don't think I could finish this blog today. After the first hike, I felt some what peaceful and happy. Then last week I went to a hike with my engineering friends and loved it. We hiked to Mount Zion and it was pretty steep at some places. After that hike I felt like I was in ok shape to do difficult hikes. Even though we wanted to start the hike early in the morning, we ended up starting sometime around 11 in the morning. Which means we walked all the way in the scorching heat. Still, it was damn good. The only sore point was we didn't have food with us and my friend Kishan was pretty much hungry after a while and had to continue all the evening with out food. I guess it taught us a good lesson. I thought we were very well prepared for the hike. We had lot of water with us. We even bought mosquitoes repellent this time and it was definitely helpful.
I always thought that hiking means just walking some where into the woods. But believe me there is more to it. It teaches you survival techniques if you are stuck some where in the forest just by yourself. Or for that matter you just understand how important it is to have water with you all the time. In our daily life we take lot of things for granted and we don't appreciate lot of things. For example, coming from a small farmer family I know the value of water. Most of the times we don't care about small things in our daily life. Because we know that we could pretty much get anything if we have some cards in our pockets. For example, you are very thirsty and you go to some store and drink some soda or you even buy water and you just swipe your cards. That's it and it's taken care of. Right? Ok now let's imagine that you are some where stuck outside the city where there is no store close by. You might be having cards worth of thousands of dollars, but still you wouldn't be able to quench your thirst. Which means you wouldn't have to worry about it if you had carried some water with you. Right? Most of the times most of the people don't do that. Reason is simple. We always think that we are invincible and nothing happens to us. May be that's true. But this is life. Which means it has to happen at some point in your life. I never carried water with me any time in my life. More over I used to think that I was good at doing things which most of the people find it difficult to do. It is just a false pride thing. If I'm truthful to my self, I'm no different to anyone which means I can also get into some situations where I'll have to face severe consequences if I'm not prepared.
Anyway, when my friend talked to me about the importance of water in the hikes , I was like it should be ok and it's not that important. But on my friend's insistence, I put lot of water bottles. Of course, I did that reluctantly. My feeling was that why should we carry that much weight. Then, after the hike I understood how important it was and I definitely appreciated the good advice. More over, having a weight on your back gives you stability on the steep hikes. I am not sure whether this is right theory, but I felt this way. More over, hiking with some weight on your back improves your strength and endurance. Now, I want to do some hikes with some camping gear on my back which would at least weight 10 pounds. My plan for the next hike is to carry at least 10 kgs on my back, I mean in my back pack. This way I'll be well prepared for my future tough hikes like Mount Whitney, etc. Oho, by the way I forgot to tell you one thing here. Mount Whitney is the highest peak in the North America and I want to do this hike some time in the near future. Some one told me that it's one of the most difficult hikes and most of the people have respiratory problems at high altitude. I even heard that people should carry some medicine for this problems. Best part about this Mount Whitney is its altitude. It is almost 15,000 ft. I'm very excited about it and I want to do it for sure. My plan is to do it in two days. I read some where that it takes minimum of 15 hours hike to reach the peak. So, I'm planning to do it over two days. After first day hike, I'm planning to camp some where in the middle of the hike on the mountain. I guess it would be cool to do that it would remain as one of the best memories for sure. I always loved to push my self and I always get pleasure when I push my limits. Some times not only strength and endurance come out of pain and suffering but also fun.
Yesterday, I did my third hike in the Griffith park which is located next to my home. I walked for 3 and half hours and I enjoyed it like anything. I went with some meetup.com in LA and it was definitely memorable. We started this hike in the evening at 5:50 and came back home at 9:30. Best part was the hike was very steep at some places. For the first 15 minutes I felt the difficulty. After that, for some reason my legs were really light. I didn't face any problems at all through out the hike. I was happily climbing and walking. No panting at all. It was just awesome. More over since it was evening there was cool breeze through out the hike. I guess it made us feel awesome. There were almost 50 people around us. I met some German guy who was interested in going to some events with us in the future. It is always a good feeling to meet new people and talk to them. I guess hiking is the best option to do it. Finally, we came down the hill at 9 pm to the parking lot and every one left in their cars. We didn't like the idea of going to the park in the car since it was close to our home. So we had to walk back home in the darkness. For a while we had problems in finding the directions and right path to head back home. Finally, when we found the path, it was pitch dark. So we used our head lamp. It was very cool to use that lamp. I wrapped it around my head and I was like wow it feels like I'm doing some adventurous thing. Before we started this hike I thought to my self that where and when would it be useful. I got the answer with in hours. It was definitely very useful to have that head lamp. Next time if I'm going to night hikes or moon light hikes, I'll definitely take some more batteries too. Who knows if we are lost some where on the top of the mountain, we might drain our batteries of the head lamp and then what? Other cool thing I found in these hiking tours is variety of bags available for hiking. There are camping bags which are huge and can accommodate lot of things and mountain bags which are good for putting mountaineering stuff and camel back pack which has some pouch inside to store water. The advantage of this camel back pack is that you can suck water through a pipe coming out of the back pack. The pipe would be some where close to your mouth. Which means you don't have to unpack the bag each and every time you are thirsty. By the way, all this explains why it's called camel back pack. Right? It's just like camel which preserves water in the top shelf of stomach when ever it drinks water. Then it slowly used that water in the long journey's in deserts. This way you could never fall back in the group. I saw some more cool stuff to carry water with us like some waist thing which has some holder place to hold the water bottles.
Now, I want to do this same hike with my friend Kihan in the near future. I know that he likes to do things like this and I'm sure he would love it. More over the best part of doing it with him is that we get to speak in Telugu and we can speak so many things since I feel we are like like-minded people.
For my future hikes, I want to buy some nice camping back pack. Right now I'm not in a position to afford this type of expenditure. We already have camping gear with us. The other thing I want to spend money on is hiking navigator. The other day I went to best buy store and did some window shopping. There I checked out these hiking navigators. They are just awesome things to have with us in the hikes. They even have some watches which would not only tell us the latitude and longitude of our position but also calculate the distance we have traveled. Cool. Right? One last and most important thing I want to spend money on is good compass.
After all this, now I'm damn interested in finding how things work. For example I started reading how one can find latitude and longitude of our position and how one can make his own compass, etc. Or for that matter how we can find the directions if we are lost some where in the woods. It's just really cool. We can find directions looking at stars and looking at sun position in the day and our own shadows. It is just amazing. Best part is it's all knowledge. I don't know whether we can ever use all of it in our life. But it's not about that I guess. It is all about how happy we feel the minute we understand how to do it. Who knows one day we might face certain situations where we'll have to use all this knowledge. I'm sure then we would be very happy and glad that we spent some time in acquiring this knowledge.
What ever it is, I'm feeling quite happy because of these hikes. I want to do it more. In the first week I felt like I was thrown into hell. This feeling is slowly wearing off as I'm trying to do some stuff here. Not just stuff, but cool stuff. Even though it is just busy life here in the city, we get to do more things if we are willing to do. It is just about our attitude in the end that matters. I am glad that my attitude is moving in the right direction.
Ok, I guess as usual I wrote a lot and now I'm feeling damn hungry. Go to go. I'm hoping to write soon. It makes me feel great when ever I write something. It is like sharing something to my self. I guess not only that. Living here in the city, it's just difficult to find people to share things with. So by doing this I'm getting relieved of my burden on my mind. Ok Sreedhar, chalo it's time for lunch.
When I was in Burlington, most of the time I was stuck to my computer and it was like I was addicted to internet. Or you could say that internet was the only friend I had. Then, finally after moving to LA I couldn't put my hands on the key board for a quite a while. I definitely loved it. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I, finally, felt like I was doing some other things apart from spending all my time on computer.
Ok. Now, I'm coming to main point of today's blog. After first week of my stay in LA, I went for three different hikes in the last 2 weeks. I didn't finish the first one. I mean we had problems in finding the right trail. Some how, almost it took 2 hours to find the trail and by that time it was almost evening. Still, we decided to go for it. Finally, some where after walking for 2 hours we felt like we lost the trail and so decided to come back. Best part of this hiking was the feeling I had through out the hike. It was completely outside the city into the valley of trees and streams. Most of the hike was covered by shade and so it was not that difficult. I could say that it was moderate. There were lots of mosquitoes and gnats, etc through out the hike. Then, we understood we had to get some mosquito repellent. Anyway, we walked back with out finishing it. Best part of the hike was it was only two of us doing it. Since it was week day there were no people at all. Sometimes you feel like escaping from everyone in this world. I am sure you know what I'm talking about it. Some times you feel very frustrated and you don't feel peaceful at all in your mind. You feel like running away from everything. At that point, best thing to do is doing something which doesn't require any brains. I guess in my opinion hiking is the best solution.
For long time, I had this feeling that these western people hike since they don't know how it feels like living in small places filled with natural beauty. I mean, for example in India I was born in a small village and it was amazing place in it's own way. We were four kids walking everywhere around that village into the forest. I even remember climbing trees and jumping from tree to tree as part of the games. We used to go into forests and look for some small fruits called regu pallu. I don't know the name of these fruits in English, but I can say one thing for sure that they are not here in this part of the world. I can say that it was pretty much hiking into woods with out knowing that it was. I mean I didn't know damn anything like hiking until I came to USA. What I'm trying to say is here in this western world even if you live in small place it just looks like modernized place. It is like you have these modern stores and all other crazy modern life things you see these days. Where as in India, once you go away from cities you don't see anything like this anymore and it just feels like you are walking into some other world. I guess this is the reason here people love to hike as it makes them feel like they are away from all the confusion and stress the one has to face in day to day life.
I guess I'm no different. I know it's funny for me to say that I'm stressed out even though I'm not working. That is totally another story. If I start writing about that, I don't think I could finish this blog today. After the first hike, I felt some what peaceful and happy. Then last week I went to a hike with my engineering friends and loved it. We hiked to Mount Zion and it was pretty steep at some places. After that hike I felt like I was in ok shape to do difficult hikes. Even though we wanted to start the hike early in the morning, we ended up starting sometime around 11 in the morning. Which means we walked all the way in the scorching heat. Still, it was damn good. The only sore point was we didn't have food with us and my friend Kishan was pretty much hungry after a while and had to continue all the evening with out food. I guess it taught us a good lesson. I thought we were very well prepared for the hike. We had lot of water with us. We even bought mosquitoes repellent this time and it was definitely helpful.
I always thought that hiking means just walking some where into the woods. But believe me there is more to it. It teaches you survival techniques if you are stuck some where in the forest just by yourself. Or for that matter you just understand how important it is to have water with you all the time. In our daily life we take lot of things for granted and we don't appreciate lot of things. For example, coming from a small farmer family I know the value of water. Most of the times we don't care about small things in our daily life. Because we know that we could pretty much get anything if we have some cards in our pockets. For example, you are very thirsty and you go to some store and drink some soda or you even buy water and you just swipe your cards. That's it and it's taken care of. Right? Ok now let's imagine that you are some where stuck outside the city where there is no store close by. You might be having cards worth of thousands of dollars, but still you wouldn't be able to quench your thirst. Which means you wouldn't have to worry about it if you had carried some water with you. Right? Most of the times most of the people don't do that. Reason is simple. We always think that we are invincible and nothing happens to us. May be that's true. But this is life. Which means it has to happen at some point in your life. I never carried water with me any time in my life. More over I used to think that I was good at doing things which most of the people find it difficult to do. It is just a false pride thing. If I'm truthful to my self, I'm no different to anyone which means I can also get into some situations where I'll have to face severe consequences if I'm not prepared.
Anyway, when my friend talked to me about the importance of water in the hikes , I was like it should be ok and it's not that important. But on my friend's insistence, I put lot of water bottles. Of course, I did that reluctantly. My feeling was that why should we carry that much weight. Then, after the hike I understood how important it was and I definitely appreciated the good advice. More over, having a weight on your back gives you stability on the steep hikes. I am not sure whether this is right theory, but I felt this way. More over, hiking with some weight on your back improves your strength and endurance. Now, I want to do some hikes with some camping gear on my back which would at least weight 10 pounds. My plan for the next hike is to carry at least 10 kgs on my back, I mean in my back pack. This way I'll be well prepared for my future tough hikes like Mount Whitney, etc. Oho, by the way I forgot to tell you one thing here. Mount Whitney is the highest peak in the North America and I want to do this hike some time in the near future. Some one told me that it's one of the most difficult hikes and most of the people have respiratory problems at high altitude. I even heard that people should carry some medicine for this problems. Best part about this Mount Whitney is its altitude. It is almost 15,000 ft. I'm very excited about it and I want to do it for sure. My plan is to do it in two days. I read some where that it takes minimum of 15 hours hike to reach the peak. So, I'm planning to do it over two days. After first day hike, I'm planning to camp some where in the middle of the hike on the mountain. I guess it would be cool to do that it would remain as one of the best memories for sure. I always loved to push my self and I always get pleasure when I push my limits. Some times not only strength and endurance come out of pain and suffering but also fun.
Yesterday, I did my third hike in the Griffith park which is located next to my home. I walked for 3 and half hours and I enjoyed it like anything. I went with some meetup.com in LA and it was definitely memorable. We started this hike in the evening at 5:50 and came back home at 9:30. Best part was the hike was very steep at some places. For the first 15 minutes I felt the difficulty. After that, for some reason my legs were really light. I didn't face any problems at all through out the hike. I was happily climbing and walking. No panting at all. It was just awesome. More over since it was evening there was cool breeze through out the hike. I guess it made us feel awesome. There were almost 50 people around us. I met some German guy who was interested in going to some events with us in the future. It is always a good feeling to meet new people and talk to them. I guess hiking is the best option to do it. Finally, we came down the hill at 9 pm to the parking lot and every one left in their cars. We didn't like the idea of going to the park in the car since it was close to our home. So we had to walk back home in the darkness. For a while we had problems in finding the directions and right path to head back home. Finally, when we found the path, it was pitch dark. So we used our head lamp. It was very cool to use that lamp. I wrapped it around my head and I was like wow it feels like I'm doing some adventurous thing. Before we started this hike I thought to my self that where and when would it be useful. I got the answer with in hours. It was definitely very useful to have that head lamp. Next time if I'm going to night hikes or moon light hikes, I'll definitely take some more batteries too. Who knows if we are lost some where on the top of the mountain, we might drain our batteries of the head lamp and then what? Other cool thing I found in these hiking tours is variety of bags available for hiking. There are camping bags which are huge and can accommodate lot of things and mountain bags which are good for putting mountaineering stuff and camel back pack which has some pouch inside to store water. The advantage of this camel back pack is that you can suck water through a pipe coming out of the back pack. The pipe would be some where close to your mouth. Which means you don't have to unpack the bag each and every time you are thirsty. By the way, all this explains why it's called camel back pack. Right? It's just like camel which preserves water in the top shelf of stomach when ever it drinks water. Then it slowly used that water in the long journey's in deserts. This way you could never fall back in the group. I saw some more cool stuff to carry water with us like some waist thing which has some holder place to hold the water bottles.
Now, I want to do this same hike with my friend Kihan in the near future. I know that he likes to do things like this and I'm sure he would love it. More over the best part of doing it with him is that we get to speak in Telugu and we can speak so many things since I feel we are like like-minded people.
For my future hikes, I want to buy some nice camping back pack. Right now I'm not in a position to afford this type of expenditure. We already have camping gear with us. The other thing I want to spend money on is hiking navigator. The other day I went to best buy store and did some window shopping. There I checked out these hiking navigators. They are just awesome things to have with us in the hikes. They even have some watches which would not only tell us the latitude and longitude of our position but also calculate the distance we have traveled. Cool. Right? One last and most important thing I want to spend money on is good compass.
After all this, now I'm damn interested in finding how things work. For example I started reading how one can find latitude and longitude of our position and how one can make his own compass, etc. Or for that matter how we can find the directions if we are lost some where in the woods. It's just really cool. We can find directions looking at stars and looking at sun position in the day and our own shadows. It is just amazing. Best part is it's all knowledge. I don't know whether we can ever use all of it in our life. But it's not about that I guess. It is all about how happy we feel the minute we understand how to do it. Who knows one day we might face certain situations where we'll have to use all this knowledge. I'm sure then we would be very happy and glad that we spent some time in acquiring this knowledge.
What ever it is, I'm feeling quite happy because of these hikes. I want to do it more. In the first week I felt like I was thrown into hell. This feeling is slowly wearing off as I'm trying to do some stuff here. Not just stuff, but cool stuff. Even though it is just busy life here in the city, we get to do more things if we are willing to do. It is just about our attitude in the end that matters. I am glad that my attitude is moving in the right direction.
Ok, I guess as usual I wrote a lot and now I'm feeling damn hungry. Go to go. I'm hoping to write soon. It makes me feel great when ever I write something. It is like sharing something to my self. I guess not only that. Living here in the city, it's just difficult to find people to share things with. So by doing this I'm getting relieved of my burden on my mind. Ok Sreedhar, chalo it's time for lunch.
Friday, January 16, 2009
After long time
Today I am writing again after long time. When first time I started this blog I was severely depressed. I guess I could never get out of it until now. What ever it was I was feeling much better for a while until recently. Now it feels like I am back to pavilion again. But the only relief is this time I am not feeling like crying. More over I am very determined that I could come out of it.
Lately and finally something happened in my life which makes me feel very depressed and frustrated. At the same time it makes me feel relieved too. I think it is very strange for me to feel like this. I was stuck with some solution less problem. In my life it there is something which I hate most with my self, that is nothing but dilemma. So finally because of some ones actions there is no more dilemma for me. Honestly speaking I am not even sure whether I like what happened. What ever it is I am ready to go with it and move on. I came to this point after suffering mental torture for long time. I think I don't have any more strength to bear the mental pain.
Ok. I know that you are getting seriously frustrated not knowing what I am talking about. I don't want to reveal. I am sure you can understand. Anyway one thing I am trying to do a lot to escape from this depression is watching movies. You know what. I do this night times like a ghost. I pretty much live in my office. I sleep in my chair. It's definitely very painful. But some where it gives me mental peace.
So I go to office and watch movies. I already told you that. Recently one of my friends told me about this movie site www.telugusilverscreen.com and then I started watching all the movies on that site. I have already seen most of those movies. Because of this depression, I guess, sometimes I don't feel like doing anything else. More over here it is freaking cold to go anywhere outside. You know what the temperature is outside right now? -30 degree Celsius. So I go to one cafeteria McLure at UVM and get my food for the rest of the night and go back to office. Then if I have mood I work. Otherwise I start watching some Telugu movie. Some of them are very good movies. I already saw most of them when I was in India. So in a way I know that they are good movies. Sometimes you don't get all the good movies. I mean once you finish all the movies you end up with movies you have never seen before. I am sure you might have heard something bad about those movies like ok or average or bad or disaster. Still I decided to watch all these movies. The outcome of this decision was I saw some terrible movies.
Just yesterday I watched a Telugu movie titled Pelli Kaanuka which means Marriage gift. It was a kind of remake of a hit Hindi movie. I don't remember the name of the movie though. It was Machima Choudary's first movie. Anyway the point is this movie is the best example how some one can screw up a good movie. That too big time. You know some times you would be watching a movie and feels angry. I was so mad watching this movie I started cursing like anything. But again it felt very good. The reason was I spoke all those bad words in Telugu. By now you might have understood how desperate I am to speak in Telugu. Here at this university you don't find that many Telugu people. More over we don't see other Indians for long times. Because it is very cold outside, it is kind of hard to see people. Anyway going back to movie, I was very frustrated the way director handled the movie. More over this guy tries to show American culture in a very bad way. Everyone has their own culture and just because it differs from our culture it is not a bad culture. I guess people realize this face only when they come here.
Even though the movie was bad, I feel very relaxed after watching them. Because your mind would be thinking of something else at least for a while. I personally feel anyone doing something for long time should have a knack of doing that work good. I mean the director of this movie always gives statements like I made this many movie. But who cares. Most of the time this guy makes worst movies. I just don't understand how some one can make a disaster after making that many movies. How come some one can't foresee what would be the outcome. I mean after making that many movies.
Anyway I am talking nonsense here. Otherwise why would I talk about some crap like this. Like I told you my mind is totally screwed up right now. At least one good thing I see with my self is I don't feel angry anymore. For a while I was filled with hate and angry and sadness. But now the list has come down to just sadness. In a way I am very happy about that.
I feel like typing more and more. Why? Because something is bothering me. But I don't know how to come out of it. So finally after watching some bad movies, I have decided to go back to my old habit. I think I don't have any more patience to watch bad movies. From now onwards I need to spend at least half an hour to write something. It really doesn't matter what I write. As long as I write something and if I feel little bit relieved after I write something, then the purpose is served.
So welcome back Sreedhar. Great thing is there are millions of people just like you in this world. Everyone has problems. My problem might be nothing when compared to some other people. So be strong and try to finish your degree here. Then at least you will have some other problems like how to survive here, or getting job here. All those problems will occupy your mind and eventually you will be out of pain and depression. Otherwise how could anyone live all his life? I don't think that works.
For now the best thing is you have your own Fortran code to work on. You know that it is a challenge to understand all that code. Right? So bring it on. You will be fine Sreedhar. Tell yourself no one can hurt you. Tell yourself you will be fine. Tell yourself it is all going to be alright.
cheers,
Sreedhar.
Lately and finally something happened in my life which makes me feel very depressed and frustrated. At the same time it makes me feel relieved too. I think it is very strange for me to feel like this. I was stuck with some solution less problem. In my life it there is something which I hate most with my self, that is nothing but dilemma. So finally because of some ones actions there is no more dilemma for me. Honestly speaking I am not even sure whether I like what happened. What ever it is I am ready to go with it and move on. I came to this point after suffering mental torture for long time. I think I don't have any more strength to bear the mental pain.
Ok. I know that you are getting seriously frustrated not knowing what I am talking about. I don't want to reveal. I am sure you can understand. Anyway one thing I am trying to do a lot to escape from this depression is watching movies. You know what. I do this night times like a ghost. I pretty much live in my office. I sleep in my chair. It's definitely very painful. But some where it gives me mental peace.
So I go to office and watch movies. I already told you that. Recently one of my friends told me about this movie site www.telugusilverscreen.com and then I started watching all the movies on that site. I have already seen most of those movies. Because of this depression, I guess, sometimes I don't feel like doing anything else. More over here it is freaking cold to go anywhere outside. You know what the temperature is outside right now? -30 degree Celsius. So I go to one cafeteria McLure at UVM and get my food for the rest of the night and go back to office. Then if I have mood I work. Otherwise I start watching some Telugu movie. Some of them are very good movies. I already saw most of them when I was in India. So in a way I know that they are good movies. Sometimes you don't get all the good movies. I mean once you finish all the movies you end up with movies you have never seen before. I am sure you might have heard something bad about those movies like ok or average or bad or disaster. Still I decided to watch all these movies. The outcome of this decision was I saw some terrible movies.
Just yesterday I watched a Telugu movie titled Pelli Kaanuka which means Marriage gift. It was a kind of remake of a hit Hindi movie. I don't remember the name of the movie though. It was Machima Choudary's first movie. Anyway the point is this movie is the best example how some one can screw up a good movie. That too big time. You know some times you would be watching a movie and feels angry. I was so mad watching this movie I started cursing like anything. But again it felt very good. The reason was I spoke all those bad words in Telugu. By now you might have understood how desperate I am to speak in Telugu. Here at this university you don't find that many Telugu people. More over we don't see other Indians for long times. Because it is very cold outside, it is kind of hard to see people. Anyway going back to movie, I was very frustrated the way director handled the movie. More over this guy tries to show American culture in a very bad way. Everyone has their own culture and just because it differs from our culture it is not a bad culture. I guess people realize this face only when they come here.
Even though the movie was bad, I feel very relaxed after watching them. Because your mind would be thinking of something else at least for a while. I personally feel anyone doing something for long time should have a knack of doing that work good. I mean the director of this movie always gives statements like I made this many movie. But who cares. Most of the time this guy makes worst movies. I just don't understand how some one can make a disaster after making that many movies. How come some one can't foresee what would be the outcome. I mean after making that many movies.
Anyway I am talking nonsense here. Otherwise why would I talk about some crap like this. Like I told you my mind is totally screwed up right now. At least one good thing I see with my self is I don't feel angry anymore. For a while I was filled with hate and angry and sadness. But now the list has come down to just sadness. In a way I am very happy about that.
I feel like typing more and more. Why? Because something is bothering me. But I don't know how to come out of it. So finally after watching some bad movies, I have decided to go back to my old habit. I think I don't have any more patience to watch bad movies. From now onwards I need to spend at least half an hour to write something. It really doesn't matter what I write. As long as I write something and if I feel little bit relieved after I write something, then the purpose is served.
So welcome back Sreedhar. Great thing is there are millions of people just like you in this world. Everyone has problems. My problem might be nothing when compared to some other people. So be strong and try to finish your degree here. Then at least you will have some other problems like how to survive here, or getting job here. All those problems will occupy your mind and eventually you will be out of pain and depression. Otherwise how could anyone live all his life? I don't think that works.
For now the best thing is you have your own Fortran code to work on. You know that it is a challenge to understand all that code. Right? So bring it on. You will be fine Sreedhar. Tell yourself no one can hurt you. Tell yourself you will be fine. Tell yourself it is all going to be alright.
cheers,
Sreedhar.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Just don't follow others - have some reasoning
I always wanted to write something like this. It is very interesting topic. Read it and I am sure you will come to the same opinion like me. Anyway I am going to say something about common mans life (like you and me). If we look at people in this world, most of them lead similar life style. I mean most of them do the same things in their lives like others. I mention some examples in the next paragraphs.
When we are born, we are told by our parents to go to school. So we start doing first thing in our life just like all others. At least I can understand this concept. I mean we really don't know what to do or we may not have enough wisdom to take decision at that small age. So our parents send us to school. But funny thing is you know why they send you school. Simple they see others doing the same thing. I mean they want you to have good life. Again this good life means just leading some life like some employer. For our parents good life is nothing but the life of some one who has good job. Thats it. So they think that if you have good education you will also have good life like that employer. In India most of the people send their children to school with this intention. No one sends school to gain knowledge and wisdom to face the realities of life one has to face in his future. I don't think people would think about all these things before sending their children to school. Again don't misunderstand my opinion here. I am not blaming anyone. I am just pointing at our mentality of following others. This way I feel nothing happens. Everyone becomes follower but not leaders. But again you can point out one simple thing here. If everyone becomes leader who is follower then? You are right? This is just concept. Even if you don't try to follow, there is no guarantee that you will become a leader. But definitely you will become a success story.
All our life we do the schooling thinking that one day we will get some good jobs. Challenge me if I am wrong. I don't think so. How many of us think differently? Especially Indians don't think differently. We just follow others. We just do things what we are told to. It makes me really crazy. It doesn't mean that I tried to do something different. But definitely I have been thinking about it a lot and trying to change my self not to follow others. I will definitely try my best not to follow. Forgive if it hurts you, but I say that we are all like sheep.
After school all of us think that we should get jobs. Then we name it settling in life. Funny. Who said it is settling in life only if we get jobs. Thats the mind set of ordinary Indian student. Once we get some job, we are really satisfied with that and don't try to do something. I am sure everyone wants to do something great in their minds. But everyone is scared to take risk. Everyone thinks like what happens if something goes wrong. Again it is really funny and crazy to think like that because of one simple reason. We all think like that before we even try those things. That means we don't give a shot at anything. We are just scared to deviated from the generality set by other people, who are also followers again. I guess only few people try this and become greats. For example actors, sports persons, etc, are all leaders in their own profession. They all tried something different from normal people and achieved something in their lives. They created something for themselves for others to talk about it. That is the life.
What we do is we just live our life following others all our lives. Thats it one day before our death lying on the death bead with tears in our eyes and holding all our sons and daughters and their kids and relatives, we think that 'yes I had some life, good way to die'. Sounds like cinema. Right? Believe me that's what most of the people want to do. But somewhere in our mind it comes back. It says that what life I had. You start thinking that did I do what ever I wanted to do in my life. You know the answer. Answer is most of the times no. But ask Sachin Tendulkar. He just studied 10th class. He didn't do any software job. But at the end he is leader. Sadly truth is we are followers. We don't try to achieve our goals giving some stupid reasons. We are scared of outcome even before we try it. Sad life. Right?
Then the ultimate thing comes to my mind. You know what that is. Marriage. Most of us get married just because others do the same thing. We do it because our parents did the same thing. Do we know the reason for it? Come on. What a stupid question sreedhar that is? Who cares about the reason? Just get married and have children just like our parents did. Thats it. Then tell your kids to go to school and study well, get good job, get married, then thats like you settled in your life. Wow. Most stupidest thing in the world if think properly about it. I am not trying to judge you if you did the same thing. What I am saying is we all do these things without thinking anything. We all do these things looking at others. Especially looking at our parents and friends. Looking at other people in the society. Don't try to scold me here for saying the truth. If you are happy about it, thats fine. But if you are honest to yourself, I am sure you also wanted to achieve something great which is not like common person does. I always feel like that even though I am also just following others.
Till now I just followed others in my life. But not anymore. I definitely don't want to follow others anymore in my life. I want to do something which gives me happy, even if it doesn't give me money. Sometimes the good thing is if you want to do something different form others, you will end up being famous and money, even if you don't want to have those things. Thats the power of being different and not following others. Again it doesn't mean that you can do bad things not following others as most of the people don't do bad things. It has to be some example to others. What I am saying is you don't want to be there in others. You won't be there in others to look at the example if you try to be different.
Recently when I was talking one of my cousin who was getting married. Funnily he said one work would be finished if he got married. I am not trying to ridicule him here. But it made me feel really surprised. Is marriage some kind of work? Definitely not. Don't get married just because you are single and not able to bear the physical needs. Try to find reasoning which makes you happy, which makes you why you are getting married. Most of the people think that they get used to that person once they are married to each other. That means you just didn't give a thought about anything except your needs and you tried to follow others by marrying someone like others. This way both of them are followers and try to teach the same thing to their kids. Please don't do it. My some other cousin gave another reason. He said his parents responsibility would be over if he got married. What reason is that? So you want to get married just because of that. Come on. Try to find something more than that. Otherwise you will just become puppet in some game called life. Try to become a king, but not pawn or soldier.
Some time back I was talking to one of my childhood friends. We were talking about cars. By the way she has two daughters. I asked her how many cars they have. She said two and I said in future they might need two more for her daughters. Then she said something very common what we all heard in our lives. It seems she told her daughters to study well, get good jobs, then they can buy very good cars just like her and her husband. Immediately I gave her one advice. When they are in a position to afford something why don't they send their kids to some tennis school or something different like other Americans. I told her to show them some tennis matches, then if they like it, they will definitely ask to join them for training even if you don't tell them anything. Thats how it should be.
I know one thing for sure. I still remember one thing happened in my family long time back. One of my cousin aged 7 years started dancing to some song in front of lot of people. Right away my aunt felt embarrassed for that and told him to stop all that. I felt so bad for that and told her that was not the way she should tell her kid. I felt she should have encouraged him. Who knows? One day he can become someone like Michael Jackson or Prabhu Deva. Parents always try to stop their kids doing something different thinking that they would fail or it would embarrass them in front of other people. Thats wrong. Don't try to put your feelings on your kids. I understand that they are your kids. But at the same time you need to understand that they have their own personalities and it all depends on what they teach them when they are kids. If you try to make them calm and obedient, that is good. But not at the cost of their enthusiasm to do different things. Encourage them. They just need encouragement. Even if you can't give him financial support, it really doesn't matter. He will find something on his own with your encouragement. But please don't tell them the same things your parents told you just because of your feeling that you had some great life. Don't put him down whenever he tries to do something great with his life just because it is different from others.
I am not saying all these things wrong. But it might make you happy for a moment. But it doesn't give you ultimate happiness. If you can do something different with your life unlike most of the people in this world, at the end of your life you feel wow I did something in my life and gave an example to others. I am sure you definitely don't want to be part of those others. I definitely don't.
Lot of people say that what else we could do apart from getting married and having children. Most of the people think that everyone should do these two like all others. No. You don't have to if you don't feel it. You don't have to unless there is something that makes you happy. Unless you find some good reasoning. The other thing is lot of people will have kids thinking that their lineage would exist after his death. That is the reason you find for having kids. Bullshit. Most of the men feel proud when their wives give birth to his children. You know why? He thinks that he has proved himself to be a man by making his wife pregnant and giving birth to child. What a selfish reason. Even pigs do that. Every creature on this earth does the same thing. Don't be proud because of wrong reasons. I think you just did your duty and created one more creature on this earth. But you should feel proud when your teachings helped your kid achieve great success in his life. But definitely not for proving your manliness. Some people think that their kids are their blood. Who cares about your blood? Does it really matter if there is no proof to your blood. I guess definitely not. There are so many people living in this world, it really doesn't matter even if you don't have kids and your family name or lineage stops with you. If you think honestly it really doesn't hurt not to have your own kids. It really doesn't hurt not to have kids with your family name. You can always adopt children. I mean there are so many orphans in this world. Think about them. If you can adopt at least two orphans and give them life, then you did something different from others. At the same time make sure that you teach them something special and make them not to follow others.
Anyway I don't mean to say that all those things are wrong. I don't mean to say that you did bad if you did those things I mentioned above. But I don't feel bad to say that you are among the sheep if you don't have enough reasonings for what you are doing right now in your life. Hey don't feel angry and irritated because of this. Do you want to feel better? Then read this. I am also someone among these sheep. But what I am doing is at least thinking about it and trying to change myself. I hope you also do the same thing. I hope you find good reason to do everything and hope you try not to follow others and create something for yourself which can be shown as an example to others. I will try for sure. But again who knows what happens. Whatever happens I guess it really doesn't matter as I can at least feel that I gave a try. That feeling is definitely worth of trying something different.
cheers,
Sreedhar.
When we are born, we are told by our parents to go to school. So we start doing first thing in our life just like all others. At least I can understand this concept. I mean we really don't know what to do or we may not have enough wisdom to take decision at that small age. So our parents send us to school. But funny thing is you know why they send you school. Simple they see others doing the same thing. I mean they want you to have good life. Again this good life means just leading some life like some employer. For our parents good life is nothing but the life of some one who has good job. Thats it. So they think that if you have good education you will also have good life like that employer. In India most of the people send their children to school with this intention. No one sends school to gain knowledge and wisdom to face the realities of life one has to face in his future. I don't think people would think about all these things before sending their children to school. Again don't misunderstand my opinion here. I am not blaming anyone. I am just pointing at our mentality of following others. This way I feel nothing happens. Everyone becomes follower but not leaders. But again you can point out one simple thing here. If everyone becomes leader who is follower then? You are right? This is just concept. Even if you don't try to follow, there is no guarantee that you will become a leader. But definitely you will become a success story.
All our life we do the schooling thinking that one day we will get some good jobs. Challenge me if I am wrong. I don't think so. How many of us think differently? Especially Indians don't think differently. We just follow others. We just do things what we are told to. It makes me really crazy. It doesn't mean that I tried to do something different. But definitely I have been thinking about it a lot and trying to change my self not to follow others. I will definitely try my best not to follow. Forgive if it hurts you, but I say that we are all like sheep.
After school all of us think that we should get jobs. Then we name it settling in life. Funny. Who said it is settling in life only if we get jobs. Thats the mind set of ordinary Indian student. Once we get some job, we are really satisfied with that and don't try to do something. I am sure everyone wants to do something great in their minds. But everyone is scared to take risk. Everyone thinks like what happens if something goes wrong. Again it is really funny and crazy to think like that because of one simple reason. We all think like that before we even try those things. That means we don't give a shot at anything. We are just scared to deviated from the generality set by other people, who are also followers again. I guess only few people try this and become greats. For example actors, sports persons, etc, are all leaders in their own profession. They all tried something different from normal people and achieved something in their lives. They created something for themselves for others to talk about it. That is the life.
What we do is we just live our life following others all our lives. Thats it one day before our death lying on the death bead with tears in our eyes and holding all our sons and daughters and their kids and relatives, we think that 'yes I had some life, good way to die'. Sounds like cinema. Right? Believe me that's what most of the people want to do. But somewhere in our mind it comes back. It says that what life I had. You start thinking that did I do what ever I wanted to do in my life. You know the answer. Answer is most of the times no. But ask Sachin Tendulkar. He just studied 10th class. He didn't do any software job. But at the end he is leader. Sadly truth is we are followers. We don't try to achieve our goals giving some stupid reasons. We are scared of outcome even before we try it. Sad life. Right?
Then the ultimate thing comes to my mind. You know what that is. Marriage. Most of us get married just because others do the same thing. We do it because our parents did the same thing. Do we know the reason for it? Come on. What a stupid question sreedhar that is? Who cares about the reason? Just get married and have children just like our parents did. Thats it. Then tell your kids to go to school and study well, get good job, get married, then thats like you settled in your life. Wow. Most stupidest thing in the world if think properly about it. I am not trying to judge you if you did the same thing. What I am saying is we all do these things without thinking anything. We all do these things looking at others. Especially looking at our parents and friends. Looking at other people in the society. Don't try to scold me here for saying the truth. If you are happy about it, thats fine. But if you are honest to yourself, I am sure you also wanted to achieve something great which is not like common person does. I always feel like that even though I am also just following others.
Till now I just followed others in my life. But not anymore. I definitely don't want to follow others anymore in my life. I want to do something which gives me happy, even if it doesn't give me money. Sometimes the good thing is if you want to do something different form others, you will end up being famous and money, even if you don't want to have those things. Thats the power of being different and not following others. Again it doesn't mean that you can do bad things not following others as most of the people don't do bad things. It has to be some example to others. What I am saying is you don't want to be there in others. You won't be there in others to look at the example if you try to be different.
Recently when I was talking one of my cousin who was getting married. Funnily he said one work would be finished if he got married. I am not trying to ridicule him here. But it made me feel really surprised. Is marriage some kind of work? Definitely not. Don't get married just because you are single and not able to bear the physical needs. Try to find reasoning which makes you happy, which makes you why you are getting married. Most of the people think that they get used to that person once they are married to each other. That means you just didn't give a thought about anything except your needs and you tried to follow others by marrying someone like others. This way both of them are followers and try to teach the same thing to their kids. Please don't do it. My some other cousin gave another reason. He said his parents responsibility would be over if he got married. What reason is that? So you want to get married just because of that. Come on. Try to find something more than that. Otherwise you will just become puppet in some game called life. Try to become a king, but not pawn or soldier.
Some time back I was talking to one of my childhood friends. We were talking about cars. By the way she has two daughters. I asked her how many cars they have. She said two and I said in future they might need two more for her daughters. Then she said something very common what we all heard in our lives. It seems she told her daughters to study well, get good jobs, then they can buy very good cars just like her and her husband. Immediately I gave her one advice. When they are in a position to afford something why don't they send their kids to some tennis school or something different like other Americans. I told her to show them some tennis matches, then if they like it, they will definitely ask to join them for training even if you don't tell them anything. Thats how it should be.
I know one thing for sure. I still remember one thing happened in my family long time back. One of my cousin aged 7 years started dancing to some song in front of lot of people. Right away my aunt felt embarrassed for that and told him to stop all that. I felt so bad for that and told her that was not the way she should tell her kid. I felt she should have encouraged him. Who knows? One day he can become someone like Michael Jackson or Prabhu Deva. Parents always try to stop their kids doing something different thinking that they would fail or it would embarrass them in front of other people. Thats wrong. Don't try to put your feelings on your kids. I understand that they are your kids. But at the same time you need to understand that they have their own personalities and it all depends on what they teach them when they are kids. If you try to make them calm and obedient, that is good. But not at the cost of their enthusiasm to do different things. Encourage them. They just need encouragement. Even if you can't give him financial support, it really doesn't matter. He will find something on his own with your encouragement. But please don't tell them the same things your parents told you just because of your feeling that you had some great life. Don't put him down whenever he tries to do something great with his life just because it is different from others.
I am not saying all these things wrong. But it might make you happy for a moment. But it doesn't give you ultimate happiness. If you can do something different with your life unlike most of the people in this world, at the end of your life you feel wow I did something in my life and gave an example to others. I am sure you definitely don't want to be part of those others. I definitely don't.
Lot of people say that what else we could do apart from getting married and having children. Most of the people think that everyone should do these two like all others. No. You don't have to if you don't feel it. You don't have to unless there is something that makes you happy. Unless you find some good reasoning. The other thing is lot of people will have kids thinking that their lineage would exist after his death. That is the reason you find for having kids. Bullshit. Most of the men feel proud when their wives give birth to his children. You know why? He thinks that he has proved himself to be a man by making his wife pregnant and giving birth to child. What a selfish reason. Even pigs do that. Every creature on this earth does the same thing. Don't be proud because of wrong reasons. I think you just did your duty and created one more creature on this earth. But you should feel proud when your teachings helped your kid achieve great success in his life. But definitely not for proving your manliness. Some people think that their kids are their blood. Who cares about your blood? Does it really matter if there is no proof to your blood. I guess definitely not. There are so many people living in this world, it really doesn't matter even if you don't have kids and your family name or lineage stops with you. If you think honestly it really doesn't hurt not to have your own kids. It really doesn't hurt not to have kids with your family name. You can always adopt children. I mean there are so many orphans in this world. Think about them. If you can adopt at least two orphans and give them life, then you did something different from others. At the same time make sure that you teach them something special and make them not to follow others.
Anyway I don't mean to say that all those things are wrong. I don't mean to say that you did bad if you did those things I mentioned above. But I don't feel bad to say that you are among the sheep if you don't have enough reasonings for what you are doing right now in your life. Hey don't feel angry and irritated because of this. Do you want to feel better? Then read this. I am also someone among these sheep. But what I am doing is at least thinking about it and trying to change myself. I hope you also do the same thing. I hope you find good reason to do everything and hope you try not to follow others and create something for yourself which can be shown as an example to others. I will try for sure. But again who knows what happens. Whatever happens I guess it really doesn't matter as I can at least feel that I gave a try. That feeling is definitely worth of trying something different.
cheers,
Sreedhar.
what are you? a carrot or an egg or a coffee bean
Title looks funny. Right? I can explain. Last month I got one mail (post) saying that I can become a member of Golden Key International Honor society. People with very good GPA can become members of this society. Frankly speaking I didn't pay that much attention. Even my friend suggested me to go for that. Anyway at the moment I decided not to join that society as I had to pay $70.00 if I want to. After a while one of my officemate explained the advantages of being a member of that society. So I thought one time $70 is worth. So I paid immediately online and became a member of it. After that I went to this ceremony on last Friday where they were honoring new members by giving some certificates. It was at 5:30 in the evening. I was kind of in dilemma weather to go or not to that function as I wanted to play racquetball with my friend. In the end I thought of going to that function with an idea of staying for half an hour and going to racquetball after that.
I went there and they asked me to fill some forms. After I did that I got a paper showing the names of people who became members of that society this year. It was kind of interesting to know that there were not that many students. That means I was one of very few people who got very good GPA. Cool. At the same time no big deal. Anyway we went inside and sat in our seats waiting for the ceremony to begin. I never liked the beginning of any kind of ceremony as people give speeches for long time. So I was hoping that people would finish their speeches in short time. But I got frustrated to see that ceremony didn't start on time. Because of some problem, they started it almost 15 minutes late. All this time my worry was whether my friend would be ready to play racquetball if I went late. Finally when the function started, the first person made me really worried an frustrated giving some stupid speed. It was so bad, at one point of time I just wanted to leave. Luckily when I was thinking like that, she finished the speech. Then some other person started his speech. It was not great, but at the same time it was not bad either. He made us laugh with some jokes. so it was kind of good even though he was not part of the speakers for the day. Finally I was relieved to know that there was only one speaker left before we could get our certificates. Then came the jolt.
Her name was Martha Woodman. She might be 55 years old or around 50. I didn't hear properly when someone gave introduction about her and asked her to come to podium. Then I noticed her having problems finding the podium. For a second I thought that she got confused or she got tense about her speech. But at the same time I didn't see any papers in her hand. That definitely made me curious. I mean lot of people always prepare their speech ahead of th event and read everything from the paper. I guess it doesn't look good that way. People don't feel connected to their speeches. As I didn't see something like that with her, I was ready to listen to her. The first sentence she talked was "The advantage of being blind is I don't have to carry any papers, but need to remember everything.". That's it for a second I was really shocked. Then I understood why she had problems in finding the podium. Then I started thinking whether she was born blind or had become blind because of some accident.
First she congratulated all the students for their achievement. Then after a while she explained why she lost her vision. She lost her vision because of some disease almost 6 years back from now. When she was on the bed in the hospital lot of people came to her and started saying good things to her to make her feel good. I guess it is kind of normal for people trying to comfort others when they are in difficult situation. It seems lot of people were saying it would make her strong. At the end of the day, it seems she got kind of frustrated to hear all that. She was not sure whether how she was going to deal with it. After that she took it as a challenge and started living her life. She is working as a professor at my university UVM. She is a professor in Business administration. It seems one day her sister came to her and started telling some story in their conversation. Here I want to say few words about this. Initially her speech was like any others. But after a while I couldn't turn my face from her. I was leaning forward as though I would miss something if I didn't do that. It was really interesting. Same with everyone in the auditorium. I explain the story in my own words here.
There were three things. First one was a carrot, second one was an egg and the third one was a coffee bean. Someone put all these things in to a steel pot. Then water was added to all those three pots. After that those 3 pots were heated for almost 20 minutes. Finally the heat was turned off. When checked, carrots became mushy and soft, inside of the eggs became hard and the third pot became full of coffee. So first carrot was hard, but in the end it became soft. At first egg was hard on outside and soft inside. But at the end inside of the egg also became strong. With coffee bean, all the water was turned into coffee. That means in the face of difficulties and hardships carrot gave up by becoming soft. From outside it looked like it could handle anything by being hard until it faced the real difficulty. Whereas egg looked strong from outside and soft inside with shell being hard and the material inside the egg being soft. That means it looks strong from outside, but soft inside. But going through difficulties the inside changed into hard thing. So egg could change herself and stand the difficulties by becoming hard inside. That means it changed herself into hard from soft. Whereas in the case of coffee beans even though they are put into water and heated for almost 20 minutes they never gave up and gave back coffee with great smell. That means coffee beans fought the difficulties and tried to be strong and good even in the case of difficulties. So all people belong to different cases I explained here. Most of the people are like carrots. Some of them are like eggs. But very few people are like coffee beans.
Anyway, she said her sister told her that she was proud to have coffee bean in her family. I felt she was absolutely right. It was kind of eye opener for me. I know for sure that lot of people, including me, start complaining even for small problems in our lives. But looking at people like her, I feel our problems are nothing. I have everything in my life. Even though I have a some health related issue with my spine, I guess I am ok to do everything. It is kind of frustrating to live with some kind of inconvenience all the time caused by pain. Still compared to her problem, mine is nothing. More over she is like a coffee bean as she is trying to do good to others by being strong. She is working as a teacher in the university. So she is giving example to the society. Whereas I am frustrated and depressed because of my problems. I am sure I don't want to give up like carrot. I guess I am becoming strong like egg in the story. I am learning to change my self to stand difficulties. I want to be like a coffee bean. People might think that one can not become a coffee bean, it has to be a born quality. I don't think so. People comment on so many things just like that as though they have plenty of experience. Believe me. You can't do that. Don't make any opinions unless you have had experience with that. So what I think is we can all learn through by going through rough time and still can emerge as winners. We can all become coffee beans. I don't know about you. I will definitely try to become a coffee bean.
I went there and they asked me to fill some forms. After I did that I got a paper showing the names of people who became members of that society this year. It was kind of interesting to know that there were not that many students. That means I was one of very few people who got very good GPA. Cool. At the same time no big deal. Anyway we went inside and sat in our seats waiting for the ceremony to begin. I never liked the beginning of any kind of ceremony as people give speeches for long time. So I was hoping that people would finish their speeches in short time. But I got frustrated to see that ceremony didn't start on time. Because of some problem, they started it almost 15 minutes late. All this time my worry was whether my friend would be ready to play racquetball if I went late. Finally when the function started, the first person made me really worried an frustrated giving some stupid speed. It was so bad, at one point of time I just wanted to leave. Luckily when I was thinking like that, she finished the speech. Then some other person started his speech. It was not great, but at the same time it was not bad either. He made us laugh with some jokes. so it was kind of good even though he was not part of the speakers for the day. Finally I was relieved to know that there was only one speaker left before we could get our certificates. Then came the jolt.
Her name was Martha Woodman. She might be 55 years old or around 50. I didn't hear properly when someone gave introduction about her and asked her to come to podium. Then I noticed her having problems finding the podium. For a second I thought that she got confused or she got tense about her speech. But at the same time I didn't see any papers in her hand. That definitely made me curious. I mean lot of people always prepare their speech ahead of th event and read everything from the paper. I guess it doesn't look good that way. People don't feel connected to their speeches. As I didn't see something like that with her, I was ready to listen to her. The first sentence she talked was "The advantage of being blind is I don't have to carry any papers, but need to remember everything.". That's it for a second I was really shocked. Then I understood why she had problems in finding the podium. Then I started thinking whether she was born blind or had become blind because of some accident.
First she congratulated all the students for their achievement. Then after a while she explained why she lost her vision. She lost her vision because of some disease almost 6 years back from now. When she was on the bed in the hospital lot of people came to her and started saying good things to her to make her feel good. I guess it is kind of normal for people trying to comfort others when they are in difficult situation. It seems lot of people were saying it would make her strong. At the end of the day, it seems she got kind of frustrated to hear all that. She was not sure whether how she was going to deal with it. After that she took it as a challenge and started living her life. She is working as a professor at my university UVM. She is a professor in Business administration. It seems one day her sister came to her and started telling some story in their conversation. Here I want to say few words about this. Initially her speech was like any others. But after a while I couldn't turn my face from her. I was leaning forward as though I would miss something if I didn't do that. It was really interesting. Same with everyone in the auditorium. I explain the story in my own words here.
There were three things. First one was a carrot, second one was an egg and the third one was a coffee bean. Someone put all these things in to a steel pot. Then water was added to all those three pots. After that those 3 pots were heated for almost 20 minutes. Finally the heat was turned off. When checked, carrots became mushy and soft, inside of the eggs became hard and the third pot became full of coffee. So first carrot was hard, but in the end it became soft. At first egg was hard on outside and soft inside. But at the end inside of the egg also became strong. With coffee bean, all the water was turned into coffee. That means in the face of difficulties and hardships carrot gave up by becoming soft. From outside it looked like it could handle anything by being hard until it faced the real difficulty. Whereas egg looked strong from outside and soft inside with shell being hard and the material inside the egg being soft. That means it looks strong from outside, but soft inside. But going through difficulties the inside changed into hard thing. So egg could change herself and stand the difficulties by becoming hard inside. That means it changed herself into hard from soft. Whereas in the case of coffee beans even though they are put into water and heated for almost 20 minutes they never gave up and gave back coffee with great smell. That means coffee beans fought the difficulties and tried to be strong and good even in the case of difficulties. So all people belong to different cases I explained here. Most of the people are like carrots. Some of them are like eggs. But very few people are like coffee beans.
Anyway, she said her sister told her that she was proud to have coffee bean in her family. I felt she was absolutely right. It was kind of eye opener for me. I know for sure that lot of people, including me, start complaining even for small problems in our lives. But looking at people like her, I feel our problems are nothing. I have everything in my life. Even though I have a some health related issue with my spine, I guess I am ok to do everything. It is kind of frustrating to live with some kind of inconvenience all the time caused by pain. Still compared to her problem, mine is nothing. More over she is like a coffee bean as she is trying to do good to others by being strong. She is working as a teacher in the university. So she is giving example to the society. Whereas I am frustrated and depressed because of my problems. I am sure I don't want to give up like carrot. I guess I am becoming strong like egg in the story. I am learning to change my self to stand difficulties. I want to be like a coffee bean. People might think that one can not become a coffee bean, it has to be a born quality. I don't think so. People comment on so many things just like that as though they have plenty of experience. Believe me. You can't do that. Don't make any opinions unless you have had experience with that. So what I think is we can all learn through by going through rough time and still can emerge as winners. We can all become coffee beans. I don't know about you. I will definitely try to become a coffee bean.
Life has become materialistic
First I want to mention what led me to write this today. Since two days I have been trying to go out of my home to do something. I couldn't play racquetball continuously for 3 days. I couldn't find anyone to play with me. Still at least I wanted to go to gym, so that I could play this game on my own. I couldn't go to the gym. You know why? Simple reason is I don't have a car. You can ask me what it has to do with having car? Yes thats true. I could easily walk to gym if the weather is nice. First of all here it is getting very cold these days. By the way it snowed well two days back. So you don't feel like walking for 30 minutes to go to the gym. Basically what I am saying is I need car for everything.
Here in USA it looks like we have everything. Yet we end up not feeling satisfied. In my case it is little different. Sometimes I feel like doing something. But again I can't do anything except sitting at home as I don't have car. In India I used to walk for longtime when ever I got bored. Here it pains to walk with all the heavy clothing. Still we feel the cold. I always want to play some game, especially racquetball as it is indoor game. But again we need one more person to play. Right? Here comes the problem. Most of the time I don't find anyone. It's really frustrating.
Anyway the point is in this so called developed country it is kind of compulsory to have a car. Every store is located at the outskirts of the city. I think I could easily walk to all these places if it is not cold outside. At the same time I can't afford car with what I make. If I buy a car, then I can't save anything to send back home. One more thing is we end up having some debt because of this car. More over we may need to spend lot of money on repairs as we buy some kind of crap for just 2 or 3K.
I have seen lot of people having everything, I mean every materialistic luxury. Still I can say that people are not that happy here compared to people in India. Of course I know that in India people are having different problems. The thing is in India people always worry about future. They always try to have savings for the future. I guess here people don't do that. Sometimes I used to wonder how everyone here could afford so many luxurious things? I mean even people with low salaries buy lot of stuff. You know how they do it? Simple. They depend on credit. I mean everyone goes for credit cards. That means here in America everyone has huge debts on their backs. So most of the time they buy stuff with others money. In the end they keep paying all that debt all their life. My feeling is whatever you buy with credit card, it doesn't make you happy. I think it might make you happy initially. But later you start regretting when you are paying minimum payments on your credit card. It goes on for ever. In India you don't see common people using credit cards. Even normal employees don't know anything about these credit cards. So they can buy stuff when they have money, I mean their own money. If you buy stuff with your own earning, then it makes you feel very happy. You don't have to worry about these monthly payments.
Still it is definitely worth to buy certain things on credit. Especially car. Lot of students who come here for studies think that there is no need to have car if they can live near university or where there is good transportation. But most of the times everyone feels that it could have been really good if he had a car. It might be because of so many simple reasons. Sometimes you want to do grocery shopping. You want to do it right away, but you know that you need to catch bus. Ok you go and check for the bus schedule. That's it. You find it there is no bus right away and you need to wait for one hour. It makes you feel damn frustrated. The point is you feel motivated to do so many things. Still we forget that we are dependent on so many other things like transportation, etc. In the end by the time there is bus we lose our motivation. Then all that week you have to face more problems because of this simple thing, like spending more money on food outside.
Right now I am really frustrated as I am not able to move out of the house. I want to go for a movie tonight. But I know for sure that I can't as I don't have a car. I want to play racquetball. Again I can't do that as I don't have transportation to go to gym. Ok. At least I can watch a movie on my TV with DVD player. Great finally I found something to kill time. But again I miss something. TV is just not enough to watch movie. I need DVD. Shit. I need to go outside to get DVD. aaa God. Funny thing is I have TV, very good home theater system. It is really useless with out DVD. So I see only one thing now. I need car. But I can't afford it. It drives me nuts.
Then what is the solution? I need to find some solution to get out of this frustration. Yes, my roommates have cars. I can ask them for a while. May for long time. But it is kind of depending on others. Why should I do that? I guess it is better to walk rather than asking from someone. There is dignity even though there is pain involved. I like to watch movies a lot. There is one movie theater in the downtown area. It shows good movies. But the problem is you don't find all new releases. If I can make myself feel that it doesn't pain to walk in the cold, then I guess I can do any of these things. If I have patience to wait for the bus, then I am sure I won't complain. When I know for sure that I can't afford the car, I need to make sure that I have my solution to feel that I don't need car to do any of these things. I need to make myself feel I don't have to depend on others. Have some good plan and follow that. I am sure I won't be able to do everything. Still I can do at least most of the things.
I think lot of people are scared to walk in the cold weather thinking that it pains a lot. I mean fingers, nose, ears, etc start hurting really bad if we are there outside walking for longtime. Still we can deal with it if we have proper winter clothing. The most important thing is or trick is not minding the pain. If you think that it can't hurt you, then it definitely can't hurt you. I am sure even thought if pains, because of your thinking it makes you feel less. So the trick is not minding. That's it. Let's see how it works.
Two days back I started walking when it was snowing outside. It felt so good. I guess I walked for almost one hour. In the end I could feel slight pain in the fingers. But again I wasn't wearing proper clothing. So no complaints. But one thing made me feel extremely happy. You know what it is. After long time I saw a movie with out going in the car. At least I felt that I could do something without having car. Now I want to continue this.
I think if I start thinking that everything makes my life miserable, then even small things make my life really miserable. But if we think even failures can't hurt us, then nothing could hurt us. I think it is all attitude. If we are not scared of the outcome, then definitely we can do anything. I think I am getting used to that kind of attitude. I am sure I am feeling much much better now. I will definitely make myself more stronger towards lot of things in life. The most important thing I need to realize is no one can hurt me. I definitely make sure that no one can hurt me. Do you know how to do that? I know. Simply not giving any chance to others. Cut it off if you notice that someone is taking control over you, either emotionally or physically or professionally. In the end it really doesn't matter just because of one simple reason. If you get hurt, you are the one feeling pain, but not others. Always remember it.
The other most important thing we need to realize is we can do lot of things without depending on these materialistic things. Once we start depending on these things, they take control over you. Make sure that you can do different things without depending on materialistic things. One can feel happy with small things. So try to find them. I am trying to find them right now. You also try to do that if you don't want to get frustrated later. Good Luck.
cheers,
Sreedhar.
Here in USA it looks like we have everything. Yet we end up not feeling satisfied. In my case it is little different. Sometimes I feel like doing something. But again I can't do anything except sitting at home as I don't have car. In India I used to walk for longtime when ever I got bored. Here it pains to walk with all the heavy clothing. Still we feel the cold. I always want to play some game, especially racquetball as it is indoor game. But again we need one more person to play. Right? Here comes the problem. Most of the time I don't find anyone. It's really frustrating.
Anyway the point is in this so called developed country it is kind of compulsory to have a car. Every store is located at the outskirts of the city. I think I could easily walk to all these places if it is not cold outside. At the same time I can't afford car with what I make. If I buy a car, then I can't save anything to send back home. One more thing is we end up having some debt because of this car. More over we may need to spend lot of money on repairs as we buy some kind of crap for just 2 or 3K.
I have seen lot of people having everything, I mean every materialistic luxury. Still I can say that people are not that happy here compared to people in India. Of course I know that in India people are having different problems. The thing is in India people always worry about future. They always try to have savings for the future. I guess here people don't do that. Sometimes I used to wonder how everyone here could afford so many luxurious things? I mean even people with low salaries buy lot of stuff. You know how they do it? Simple. They depend on credit. I mean everyone goes for credit cards. That means here in America everyone has huge debts on their backs. So most of the time they buy stuff with others money. In the end they keep paying all that debt all their life. My feeling is whatever you buy with credit card, it doesn't make you happy. I think it might make you happy initially. But later you start regretting when you are paying minimum payments on your credit card. It goes on for ever. In India you don't see common people using credit cards. Even normal employees don't know anything about these credit cards. So they can buy stuff when they have money, I mean their own money. If you buy stuff with your own earning, then it makes you feel very happy. You don't have to worry about these monthly payments.
Still it is definitely worth to buy certain things on credit. Especially car. Lot of students who come here for studies think that there is no need to have car if they can live near university or where there is good transportation. But most of the times everyone feels that it could have been really good if he had a car. It might be because of so many simple reasons. Sometimes you want to do grocery shopping. You want to do it right away, but you know that you need to catch bus. Ok you go and check for the bus schedule. That's it. You find it there is no bus right away and you need to wait for one hour. It makes you feel damn frustrated. The point is you feel motivated to do so many things. Still we forget that we are dependent on so many other things like transportation, etc. In the end by the time there is bus we lose our motivation. Then all that week you have to face more problems because of this simple thing, like spending more money on food outside.
Right now I am really frustrated as I am not able to move out of the house. I want to go for a movie tonight. But I know for sure that I can't as I don't have a car. I want to play racquetball. Again I can't do that as I don't have transportation to go to gym. Ok. At least I can watch a movie on my TV with DVD player. Great finally I found something to kill time. But again I miss something. TV is just not enough to watch movie. I need DVD. Shit. I need to go outside to get DVD. aaa God. Funny thing is I have TV, very good home theater system. It is really useless with out DVD. So I see only one thing now. I need car. But I can't afford it. It drives me nuts.
Then what is the solution? I need to find some solution to get out of this frustration. Yes, my roommates have cars. I can ask them for a while. May for long time. But it is kind of depending on others. Why should I do that? I guess it is better to walk rather than asking from someone. There is dignity even though there is pain involved. I like to watch movies a lot. There is one movie theater in the downtown area. It shows good movies. But the problem is you don't find all new releases. If I can make myself feel that it doesn't pain to walk in the cold, then I guess I can do any of these things. If I have patience to wait for the bus, then I am sure I won't complain. When I know for sure that I can't afford the car, I need to make sure that I have my solution to feel that I don't need car to do any of these things. I need to make myself feel I don't have to depend on others. Have some good plan and follow that. I am sure I won't be able to do everything. Still I can do at least most of the things.
I think lot of people are scared to walk in the cold weather thinking that it pains a lot. I mean fingers, nose, ears, etc start hurting really bad if we are there outside walking for longtime. Still we can deal with it if we have proper winter clothing. The most important thing is or trick is not minding the pain. If you think that it can't hurt you, then it definitely can't hurt you. I am sure even thought if pains, because of your thinking it makes you feel less. So the trick is not minding. That's it. Let's see how it works.
Two days back I started walking when it was snowing outside. It felt so good. I guess I walked for almost one hour. In the end I could feel slight pain in the fingers. But again I wasn't wearing proper clothing. So no complaints. But one thing made me feel extremely happy. You know what it is. After long time I saw a movie with out going in the car. At least I felt that I could do something without having car. Now I want to continue this.
I think if I start thinking that everything makes my life miserable, then even small things make my life really miserable. But if we think even failures can't hurt us, then nothing could hurt us. I think it is all attitude. If we are not scared of the outcome, then definitely we can do anything. I think I am getting used to that kind of attitude. I am sure I am feeling much much better now. I will definitely make myself more stronger towards lot of things in life. The most important thing I need to realize is no one can hurt me. I definitely make sure that no one can hurt me. Do you know how to do that? I know. Simply not giving any chance to others. Cut it off if you notice that someone is taking control over you, either emotionally or physically or professionally. In the end it really doesn't matter just because of one simple reason. If you get hurt, you are the one feeling pain, but not others. Always remember it.
The other most important thing we need to realize is we can do lot of things without depending on these materialistic things. Once we start depending on these things, they take control over you. Make sure that you can do different things without depending on materialistic things. One can feel happy with small things. So try to find them. I am trying to find them right now. You also try to do that if you don't want to get frustrated later. Good Luck.
cheers,
Sreedhar.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
I am feeling really restless; I want to have a daily schedule
I don't know why, but lately I always want to write something depressing. But somewhere inside my mind I want to get out of this crazy thoughts. I have tried my best to come out of all this frustration and depression for a while. I think now I am feeling much better compared to some time back. Still some times I feel really really restless. Why? I know reasons. But I don't do anything to get out of it. I know the reasons for my restlessness, frustration and depression. Still I don't take any action to come out of this. I guess I just want to live my life waiting on something to happen. Frankly speaking I know for sure that nothing happens if I don't take life into my hands.
All the time I go to the youtube and see some tennis videos of Justine Henin. Always I watch the same video again and again. I have this compulsive disorder. I try to suppress this by doing something else. Some times if something comes to my mind, I can't do anything except keep thinking about the same even though I don't like that. Strange. The more I try to get out of this, the more I am into this problem. More over I am not trying to do something I am supposed to do. I am sure if I keep doing what I am supposed to do, then within no time I can definitely come out of all this. For example I need to work on my new project as a part of my thesis for PhD. But I haven't been working on it for a while. How long can I go like this? It doesn't help either personally or professionally. I need to change this worst habit of living in the past. It is taking me down.
The other thing I notice is I constantly check my gmail and go to the same websites again and again. I guess this is just because I don't know what to do and I don't want to do certain things which are supposed to be done. So I understand one thing. I am always escaping from the real world. I just want to be lazy. To escape from something I am feeding some problems to my mind. I mean my mind it self is creating these self-made problems to escape from the daily work.
I think it never occurred to me that I am trying to think everything in negative way. The other thing I noticed with my personality is I complain a lot even for small problems. I simply get frustrated. Funny thing is I always think that I have lots of patience. Looking at all these things it definitely doesn't look like I have lots of patience. May be I am trying to make other people responsible for my problems. If I start thinking right, then I will definitely understand it well as I always feel it somewhere in side my mind. I guess no one likes to be reason for their own problems. Always people try to blame it on others. I guess I am also no exception to that. But if I am honest to myself, then I know the fact.
I just don't know what I really want in my life. I am just wasting my time not doing anything useful. I always try to give some philosophical thinking to my thoughts to make feel better about what I am doing right now in my life. Finally I feel like going back to my life as a student from 5th grade to 10th grade in Navodaya school. There it was like military. I had to wake up early in the morning and go for exercises. Then I had to be on time for school prayer. Now I am really firm on making good schedule on what to do everyday. If I follow at least half of it, then I will definitely be in the right path. If I want to finish my PhD in another one and half to 2 years, then I need to follow some schedule. I need to work hard.
Yesterday my first paper was accepted for publication in one of the fluid mechanics journals. Right now I am working on very interesting topic called DPD applied to lipid bilayers. I know for sure that if I do good work, I will not have any problems in getting very good publication in top journals as this work was never done before. Still I am not doing anything to finish off the work for which I came here all the way from India. Again it looks really funny to put some printouts of my daily schedule on the wall. I am sure it sounds funny to me and my all friends because we never tried to do this before and may be don't like the idea of trying to be good and perfect student like nerds here. What ever it is, if it puts me in right track, then there is no wrong in doing it. Right?
The other thing is I am getting used to writing a lot on my blog. That too I am using this blog to escape from my real life frustrations. I don't know whether it is good or bad. In a way I spend lot of time writing. But in the end it gives me immense satisfaction. By the time I finish writing I feel really relieved. My mind feels really fresh. If it makes me feel happy, then I guess it is definitely good habit even though it requires lot of time.
Another good thing is today I have fixed my bike and it is working properly now. Some time back I didn't know that I should not use choke for long time when riding the bike. It causes lot of carbon to deposit on spark plugs. So I had to change these spark plugs. I did it with my own hands reading repair manual. Even thought it is simple work, I felt extremely happy and proud when I successfully changed the spark plugs. It was my first mechanical work. Funny thing is I am a mechanical engineer, but I really don't any thing when it comes to either cars or bikes. So in a way this is the first step in learning a lot in repairs. I feel extremely motivated to read lot of books on engines, etc. I feel like laughing as I never cared to read the books carefully enough to understand the concepts. In in engineering I just read them to get good marks. Now I see the importance of all those things. When it comes to personal use, only then people try to learn things. In a way it is definitely good thing in USA as it costs much to fix things manually. That way we learn things as we don't like to spend lots of money on fixing with the help of mechanics. Manual labor is damn expensive here.
Now I am going to have lot of time to go through these bike manuals and read about engines as I am going to put my bike in garage till next summer. All this time I can use properly to understand basic concepts, so that I can use my bike properly when I use it next time and can fix it on my own if something happens with it. I guess it motivates me to do something useful everyday. It tells me to concentrate on my research. You know why I feel like that? If I don't do good research, then I will get fired. If I get fired, then I won't get chance to ride my new bike next summer. That means I am wasting lots of money and effort I put in to this bike. In a way if I respect money and time, then I should do something to keep it that way. That is nothing but doing good work in the university. Let's see whether I keep it or lose it.
Ok. Now time for cooking. After that make one schedule and take printouts to keep them on the wall. First step is waking up early in the tomorrow morning. If I can do that, then its like I have done half of the work. I always wake up something around 11 or 12 in the morning. That means I don't see half of the day. More over here sun goes down by 4pm. So I see most probably just 2 hours of sun everyday. So I feel like I am there just for 2 hours. If this is the case how can I do some work in my everyday life in all this winter. That means if I wake up at 6am, I can see whole day. I am sure definitely it looks like I have lot of time to do something everyday.
Enough of my planning. Hopefully I should follow it. I should be able to follow it, at least half of what I plan if not full. I don't want to ask God to make me follow it. That is simply stupid to ask like that. It is not in his hands, but in my hands to do that. So Sreedhar try to use your time properly to make something out of it. Chalo. Why till tomorrow? Start now it self. Lets cook something so that I don't have to worry for lunch tomorrow. More over its kind of sucks to spend lots of money on food in cafeteria. Lets make a daily plan. Cool. Sounds good. Now go away. This is enough. You have already written damn two pages. Go and do some useful things before you call yourself stupid.
All the time I go to the youtube and see some tennis videos of Justine Henin. Always I watch the same video again and again. I have this compulsive disorder. I try to suppress this by doing something else. Some times if something comes to my mind, I can't do anything except keep thinking about the same even though I don't like that. Strange. The more I try to get out of this, the more I am into this problem. More over I am not trying to do something I am supposed to do. I am sure if I keep doing what I am supposed to do, then within no time I can definitely come out of all this. For example I need to work on my new project as a part of my thesis for PhD. But I haven't been working on it for a while. How long can I go like this? It doesn't help either personally or professionally. I need to change this worst habit of living in the past. It is taking me down.
The other thing I notice is I constantly check my gmail and go to the same websites again and again. I guess this is just because I don't know what to do and I don't want to do certain things which are supposed to be done. So I understand one thing. I am always escaping from the real world. I just want to be lazy. To escape from something I am feeding some problems to my mind. I mean my mind it self is creating these self-made problems to escape from the daily work.
I think it never occurred to me that I am trying to think everything in negative way. The other thing I noticed with my personality is I complain a lot even for small problems. I simply get frustrated. Funny thing is I always think that I have lots of patience. Looking at all these things it definitely doesn't look like I have lots of patience. May be I am trying to make other people responsible for my problems. If I start thinking right, then I will definitely understand it well as I always feel it somewhere in side my mind. I guess no one likes to be reason for their own problems. Always people try to blame it on others. I guess I am also no exception to that. But if I am honest to myself, then I know the fact.
I just don't know what I really want in my life. I am just wasting my time not doing anything useful. I always try to give some philosophical thinking to my thoughts to make feel better about what I am doing right now in my life. Finally I feel like going back to my life as a student from 5th grade to 10th grade in Navodaya school. There it was like military. I had to wake up early in the morning and go for exercises. Then I had to be on time for school prayer. Now I am really firm on making good schedule on what to do everyday. If I follow at least half of it, then I will definitely be in the right path. If I want to finish my PhD in another one and half to 2 years, then I need to follow some schedule. I need to work hard.
Yesterday my first paper was accepted for publication in one of the fluid mechanics journals. Right now I am working on very interesting topic called DPD applied to lipid bilayers. I know for sure that if I do good work, I will not have any problems in getting very good publication in top journals as this work was never done before. Still I am not doing anything to finish off the work for which I came here all the way from India. Again it looks really funny to put some printouts of my daily schedule on the wall. I am sure it sounds funny to me and my all friends because we never tried to do this before and may be don't like the idea of trying to be good and perfect student like nerds here. What ever it is, if it puts me in right track, then there is no wrong in doing it. Right?
The other thing is I am getting used to writing a lot on my blog. That too I am using this blog to escape from my real life frustrations. I don't know whether it is good or bad. In a way I spend lot of time writing. But in the end it gives me immense satisfaction. By the time I finish writing I feel really relieved. My mind feels really fresh. If it makes me feel happy, then I guess it is definitely good habit even though it requires lot of time.
Another good thing is today I have fixed my bike and it is working properly now. Some time back I didn't know that I should not use choke for long time when riding the bike. It causes lot of carbon to deposit on spark plugs. So I had to change these spark plugs. I did it with my own hands reading repair manual. Even thought it is simple work, I felt extremely happy and proud when I successfully changed the spark plugs. It was my first mechanical work. Funny thing is I am a mechanical engineer, but I really don't any thing when it comes to either cars or bikes. So in a way this is the first step in learning a lot in repairs. I feel extremely motivated to read lot of books on engines, etc. I feel like laughing as I never cared to read the books carefully enough to understand the concepts. In in engineering I just read them to get good marks. Now I see the importance of all those things. When it comes to personal use, only then people try to learn things. In a way it is definitely good thing in USA as it costs much to fix things manually. That way we learn things as we don't like to spend lots of money on fixing with the help of mechanics. Manual labor is damn expensive here.
Now I am going to have lot of time to go through these bike manuals and read about engines as I am going to put my bike in garage till next summer. All this time I can use properly to understand basic concepts, so that I can use my bike properly when I use it next time and can fix it on my own if something happens with it. I guess it motivates me to do something useful everyday. It tells me to concentrate on my research. You know why I feel like that? If I don't do good research, then I will get fired. If I get fired, then I won't get chance to ride my new bike next summer. That means I am wasting lots of money and effort I put in to this bike. In a way if I respect money and time, then I should do something to keep it that way. That is nothing but doing good work in the university. Let's see whether I keep it or lose it.
Ok. Now time for cooking. After that make one schedule and take printouts to keep them on the wall. First step is waking up early in the tomorrow morning. If I can do that, then its like I have done half of the work. I always wake up something around 11 or 12 in the morning. That means I don't see half of the day. More over here sun goes down by 4pm. So I see most probably just 2 hours of sun everyday. So I feel like I am there just for 2 hours. If this is the case how can I do some work in my everyday life in all this winter. That means if I wake up at 6am, I can see whole day. I am sure definitely it looks like I have lot of time to do something everyday.
Enough of my planning. Hopefully I should follow it. I should be able to follow it, at least half of what I plan if not full. I don't want to ask God to make me follow it. That is simply stupid to ask like that. It is not in his hands, but in my hands to do that. So Sreedhar try to use your time properly to make something out of it. Chalo. Why till tomorrow? Start now it self. Lets cook something so that I don't have to worry for lunch tomorrow. More over its kind of sucks to spend lots of money on food in cafeteria. Lets make a daily plan. Cool. Sounds good. Now go away. This is enough. You have already written damn two pages. Go and do some useful things before you call yourself stupid.
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Sreedhar Manchu
Higher Education: Not a simple life anymore