MTP Orientation

Finally a post that is current; and inline with the tagline of this blog..
Its been quite some time since I have done this, perhaps only in the very beginning of the blog.

MTP - M.Tech Project; is the mammoth that forms the course, and we had some useful insights on planning it well and managing its course.
What was observed; however was that it is important to be "diligent", "hard-working", "punctual", "genuinely interested" and so on - lot of terms that are so easily spoken about and advised but hard to practice.

And yet again - stress was laid on the fact that we are a part of a research community now - and our project and the resultant dissertation is the contribution that we are making to our fields. Now that part is clear and understood by me - it is what makes us 'Masters' in some sense...

Beyond anything - it is high time to realize what is important and prioritized in life(and I am deliberately using passive voice..). It is crucial to realize what is the stone, the gravel, the sand and the water in the famous wisdom story: Stone, Gravel and Sand. It was very well put by one of the professors that the MTP is the stone first - and it needs the top priority..

So look out - MTP ahead!!!

Surprise Visit to Bangalore

What ? Now - so late ? Why when its no more relevant ?
-- Yeah, I can guess all such questions coming up when someone sees the title - but well; that is me these days - Out of sorts and time unmanaged..
So just continuing the form, besides it has been a long time since I have blogged anything :)

This visit was a surprise to my family - as I hadn't given a clue about visiting; and well I personally didnt have the plan finalized until the last day...
But things worked out and I was able to give quite a surprise back home - though my friends knew it before thanks to the social network and me ;)
And to my surprise - Bangalore was hotter than Mumbai!

Talking about friends - realized one other thing - Everyone is busy! Weekends are the only option..
So the week went without much ado - and certainly with no care for studies at all !
Then the weekend - met friends at a hotel, ate and talked, and then went to bowling. That same schedule has become sort of boring now - I am expecting something different for the next time...
And also more weekends - one weekend is not enough to meet all packs of friends!!

Well thats it - I have been quite out of touch and this is all I can write down now...
Miss You Bengaluru :-)

Spontaneity v/s Consistency

These are the 2 ways of dealing with things - and different situations demand either of them to get a result.

Spontaneity, Intuition - that's a quick way of doing things. Occasionally invoked in the presence of deadlines; it can be useful in getting a solution - albeit not the best one. It is perhaps a skill that needs to developed to deal with changing needs. However, not every situation can be solved in the anticipation of something spontaneous to strike in the mind - but if it does, there is nothing more pleasing at that moment of time...

Consistency, on the other hand; is usually attributed to other terms like dedication, continuous effort, rigor etc. It is needed to deal with things that are large - in relation to scope, space, time and more. Just being spontaneous does not suffice here, because there is that need for integrated and focused efforts efforts to achieve the big picture. Quite often it is said to be the recipe to success...

For any person; both Spontaneity and Consistency are needed - in the right proportions - to get the best out of him. More specifically, an Engineer(biased here because I believe I am one..) needs to be both spontaneous and consistent as the situation demands. For instance - the different decisions he takes in a project he does can be either of the two, as long as they aid positively in the progress of it. One other example would be this - Talking is spontaneous, but career demands some form of consistency.

But general human tendency is to be more on one side of the divide - either inherently spontaneous, or inherently consistent. One however needs to develop both to get stuff right. This is no Success Mantra - as I am a nobody to do that, but yet another of my insights.....

Money Value of Time

What is Time ??
Philosophically put, Time is Life - it concerns with how you spend it, what you achieve with it, how well you utilize it, and how well you deal with it...
Quite hard to disagree on that.

And certainly Time has value - that Money value of time is something that is very decisive of what will happen in the coming moments.
Just like its anti-equivalent - Time value of money; it varies at different situations - mattering more at certain situations and sometimes not so much.

In that account, I can fairly say that I am a lavish spender of time; rather an unworthy utilizer. There are a lot of activities that I can quickly recall that definitely translate into a grave waste of time - thinking over such a long sentence for instance!

Money value of lost time keeps appreciating over time - the later you think of it, the more waste it seems!
At the same time, Money Value of the time yet to come holds a lot of potential, a lot that it can result in. So, just like Entropy - Money Value of Time is an ever increasing quantity...

It is well established that there is no substitute for lost time(unless some freaking genius makes time travel a reality :D), so there is no use of repenting over it. But certainly for learners - it is a worthy experience to make amends for what is coming ahead in their life.
Similarly, one cannot be complacent by the saying:
               "Past is History, Future is a Mystery, Today is a Gift, and thats why it is called the Present"
because in a short span of time, the Future will be the Present, and the Present is Past.
So, TIME yourself right !

Parting thought: Shared some thoughts on Time in this special time that occurs once in four years; sort of went back in time to do that ;)  

Habits

Everyone has habits - some good, some bad, some peculiar, some normal, and some that raise a few eyebrows...
There are some habits that define what you are, and some that are next to nothing; but however they are - they are quintessentially a part of our lives.

And there is always that risk of a habit turning into an addiction - one must beware of that..
To quote myself - in my younger days; watching TV was a habit, and soon turned into an addiction. After a few years - came Social networking, and lo it happened again - starting as a habitual timepass and then turned addictive. Now, back to square one - started watching sitcoms, and now addicted !!!
But some other habits like reading books and disciplining work are placed at a high position and highly suggested.

Anyway, habits are catalyzed by different factors - peer inspiration, technology, information etc.
There were some habits that I picked up because of my friends - watching cartoons, a brief spell of stamp collection, collecting those game cards that came with confectioneries, having get-togethers, watching sitcoms etc.
But quite few come from within - notably reading books; a habit that I have seemed to have lost track these days..

There are some habits that are more suitably termed hobbies - watching movies, playing some games, fiddling with your phone, travelling etc. These are the things that bring variety to life - and are heavily advicable. One can also quote Giving Free Advice Without Practicing as a hobby here; which I feel is the direction in which this post is going :D

Time - but of course, is the major factor that decides what and how your habits are. Habits grow, change, modify, and end with time. Sleep habits, to illustrate - Until I came here, I used to be an early sleeper and early waker. Now it has become late sleeper and late waker. As noticed, the notion of time is multitude when I said it affects habits..

Coming to the present - there are many habits that I have developed: chatting with friends, ranting to study, laptop-sleep-eat-laptop cycle, and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Ohh.., I just realized I dont have many, and certainly not ones that are appreciated !!

Here is an interesting illustration of what habits constitutes of:

 
To end the article - here is one habit that I can be proud of - Blogging :-)

On Being Over-reactive and its Consequences

Abstract: This blog post talks about an analysis carried out to explore the causes, manifestations and consequences of being over-reactive to situations by the test subject - namely Me..
It tries to provide a critical description of the pros and cons of the situation, and to propose a possible solution for future situations.
Key Words: Over-reactive, Me

Introduction:
           Since the advent of this blog, there is one striking feature - ranting about various things that are happening; mainly accounted by being excessively reactive to them. There are clear indications of one losing a tranquil approach while dealing with situations - which is a thing of concern. This study focuses on highlighting these aspects and creating possible solutions.
This post is organized as follows. The next section talks about the motivation that has caused this scenario. Following that section will be a brief list of noted incidents. We then proceed to the observations and results, followed by a short conclusion.

Motivation:
         From well known studies of the past and personal experiences, we can figure out that the rootcause for the over-reacting phenomenon is mostly the change in the place, position and lifestyle. Change in the environment is expected to translate into such behavioural patterns - ranging from simple commentary of the surroundings to blaming a system or entity for all the happenings to being in occassional states of dejection.
Also, there is a room for suspicion for emotional issues and lazyness to have acted as catalysts for the process.

Incidents:
        There have been many occasions - some quoted in this blog, some not; that suggest that the situation has been looked at with more attention than necessary. Instead of elaborating them, here is a congregated list:
           *  Missing home, Being Homesick, Indecision kind of posts.
           *  Some real weird choices of courses - that feel ridiculous after the last date of changing and dropping!
           *  General concerns about things that dont matter, and inadequate attention to things that do.
           *  Weekly cycle of no-tension to full-tension as workload increases.
           *  Running back home twice in 3 months of first sem - that should top the list!!

Observations and Results:
        The above study clearly indicates that being over-reactive does not help the situation very much. If anything, it only acts as a diversion from the task at hand. These observations call for a more integrated and relaxed approach to the situation. Although unclear, there is a need for a better way of dealing with things.

Conclusion:
        This post looked into one of the many aspects that have been a bit of botheration of recent times. Efforts are being made to mend the approach, and a have a more practical mindset in dealing with situations. Further investigations might be necessary to track the progress and report any deviations.

* Proceedings of My Diary - Life in IITB, Article 58     

References:
[1] http://sumanth-j.blogspot.in/    

Deja Vu

Had an coding assignment work this week - and we had to sit together and get it done in 3 days.
Went to a lab and did some minor brainstorming followed by coding - and deja vu : remembered the good old days of working as a team at E-Learning lab..

Although it was a short stint for 3 days - it did remind some wonderful days of the WikiPES project.

Reaching almost never on time,
chatting with and meeting friends,
being online for no reason except for network connected systems,
4 to 5 computers around and just one summer project,
HOD doing inspections and supporting for its release(although it didnt fare well later on!!),
being enthusiastic about it,
ending the day with chats and juice,
and if the mood was there - Work!
And later on came an internship too - same lab, more work, more coding(relative to what we did earlier!), and beyond other things: more fun!!!
Seems sort of cliche and funny to say - Ah! Those were the days :)

The environment here is not all the same - but it get me to do some coding after a long time, and it did include some of the fun aspect as well..
Anyway, it brought back some old memories - some of them captured in pics and stored on my hard disk; and a lot more stored inside the mind :)

I have discovered that I have the pulse for having such fun environment to work at - Finally something on my checklist to look out for in my next job.