Weird search hits

  I have been thinking of starting this post for a long time. For my record than for anything else. Some of the weirdest search phrases point to this blog. Here are a few of them

when someone says “i care for you” – me        talk about personality issues

what if i open the yellow packet of visa            ??????

kiss me i am panjabi                                      a pick up line?

do i remove socks for medical checkup            medical dilemma!!!!!

financial aid poems                                        dont think thats a recommended way for aid

what if 28 crocin are taken at once???             Holy Mackerel!!!!!

Achievement and happiness

  In the last few days I have left my job and was home for a period of transition. I am to go back to school and start studying. At home I found time for myself and got into retrospection. I got thinking about the last two years and the accomplishments I have had or did not have. This article is about the importance of goal setting.

  Goal setting is highly important if you want to have a feeling of achievement after a period of time. If you had not set any goals then at the end of a certain period you feel as though you merely existed. Yes you are happy with the incidental achievements. You are happy with the people you met and the experiences you have had. But no, you did not achieve what you started out to achieve, because you did not have anything in mind. It is a wonderful existence but is not the mental make up of goal achievers.

  The people who have achieved a lot in life are the ones who have set goals for themselves. These goals were in line with where they want to be and the kind of people they want to be. Once you have an idea of who you are and who you want to be then you can list out the steps that you need to take to be there. These are your short term goals. The person who you want to be becomes your long term goal.

  Once you have an idea about your short term goals then you need to timeline it. Give them a fixed time for fruition. For major short term goals time to fruition is anywhere between 2 to 5 years. Once these are done then you know what you can expect at the end of 2 to 5 years.

  During this time you keep your goals in mind and work towards them. This sounds idealistic but is very practical and is imperative for a meaningful existence. From personal experience I know how the last two years were.

  At work I did not have any specific expectations. It was a period where I thought I will look around and experience and have fun. Well I had fun of course but at the end of it, what happened to me is something that I did not expect to happen. It was a pleasant surprise but well I think maybe I could have sculptured it differently had I put in the efforts to plan and set goals before I started working. Even if I had planned and set this, to go for my ms after two years, as my goal I would have felt better as I would think that I achieved what I had set to achieve.

  You may ask why such a feeling is important. Well I leave that up to you. Do you want to feel powerful? Do you want to feel in control of your life? Do you want to feel as though you are shaping your destiny? Or do you want to feel as though you are tossed hither and thither by life’s whim and fancy. It is a personal choice.

  I contrast this with my mental make up before college. During that time I was overcome by a desire to achieve. Every six months I used to draw up a list of goals. I used to religiously work at those goals. And what I couldn’t achieve I copied it onto a fresh list for the next 6 months. It turned out to be a period of rapid self development. I found new confidence and reason for living. I had a purpose and a direction. It felt great to be moving in that direction.

  Now as I am writing this I feel as though that sense of direction and purpose is returning. Part of the reason could be the goal setting exercise I had in the morning today. I expect my next couple of years to be a period of immense productivity as I have fixed expectations in mind.

  My purpose in writing this down is to let you in on another tool for self improvement and feeling good. This tool is goal setting. Set specific goals with a time line and believe that you can achieve them. Then observe yourself as you move along achieving your goals. At then end of the time you set yourself, give yourself a pat on the back for getting to where you thought and wanted to get.

TB Screening Update

  I had written an article on how I sent my TB screening report without undergoing a mandox test. I still don’t know if it is accepted, as the health department still has not replied. So my assumption is that it has been accepted. If not then my contingency plan is to reach Duke and schedule one.

Leaving a city

  With four days left in Bangalore, I am overcome with a sense of attachment to a city that bugged me in many ways. Well more than the city it’s the chores that I have to do that become the reason for the attachment. For anyone who is leaving a city, I guess the following list of things to do will come in handy. This is mostly for a person who has lived at a new city alone and for about two years.

1. Credit card: If u have one cancel it and redeem the reward points

2. Cell phone and other phones: cancel them and pay the bill. Ensure that you make arraignments to cancel the connection only on the date of the billing cycle, otherwise you will have to pay extra and the discounts will not be taken into account. Send those instructions in a mail.

3. Give notice to your landlord and collect the deposit amount. Make sure you do this early because you need to leave time for him to get the money ready and discuss issues with you.

4. Finish up work early and get into the reliving formalities early. You need to do this so that there are no glitches. Especially if you are leaving the city for good and cant come back to collect any documents.

5. Take care of tax and other related issues. Make arraignments to collect your form 16.

6. Book tickets early, this has to be done at least 1 or 2 months in advance so that you can avail of low airfares.

7. Pack your back at least a week in advance and weigh the bag. Ensure that it doesn’t go beyond the aircraft weight restrictions.

8. Decide to sell off, leave behind and take with you, your stuff that you would have accumulated over the years.

9. Writ a mail to all colleagues, friends and other concerned people informing them of your decision to move on and leave a contact email id and phone number.

10. Call up people in the new place where you will be moving. Establish contacts and inform them when you are reaching.

11. Ensure that you send a message to all contacts you have on your telephone.
Will put up more soon.

Visions of the future

  This article is not based on logic! So if you look for logical validations and proofs you will not find any. The theory is based solely on what I have observed, read and believed in. It is about how we develop visions about our future and how the principle of life fleshes out these visions and gives it a body and structure. Ultimately, what was once a vision becomes a reality!

  I started observing this from a very young age. Right now, take the case of me going to Duke for my masters. This desire originated about 6 years back, just before my college. I had wanted to go to US for my masters, “ just like my uncles had”. I was fascinated by the prospect of a fantastic country and a totally different culture. It was strong and clear. So at the end of my second year I took the GRE and the TOEFL. But by the end of third year I had a job and my interest in going abroad subsided. Partly because of the job and partly because of the many things that needed to be done to get there: SOP, recommendation letters, aid, selecting universities, consultants, VISA, course, research topic, application fee, tuition fee and so many more open ended questions made the whole application process daunting.

  So I took the easy way out and did not even apply. I took up my campus offer. After about a year I felt the desire to get out of my job. I had to apply to schools in US. So I did that. No longer for computer science (my major during under graduation), but for biomedical engineering, a field I was interested in for a long time but gave up somewhere after 10th. I observed traces of a renewed interest during my final year seminar about biosensors. When I wrote my SOP, it felt as if the decisions and choices I have taken were well thought out, while actually they werent. Atleast not to the extent to which I had described in my SOP.

  Even After my application process, I could not sit still. So I took the GMAT and applied to business schools in India (ISB) and abroad. But I did not get through for lack of significant work experience, though I had a good score. That got me thinking, “should I wait for another year and then apply to more business schools or should I take up this offer at duke?” I thought I will take up the offer at duke because it was something that I have wanted to do sometime back and it is at a place where I think I will enjoy.

  Thus in some strange convoluted life sequence, I ended up doing something I wanted to do 6years back; now. Somehow the vision became a reality even when it did not seem to, in-between.

  I have observed many more patterns like this in my life and in others. Many thinkers and writers have written about how your thoughts turn into actions and how these actions shape your future. So basically the point I am trying to drive home is about how your thoughts shape your future.

  Well, I want to stress again that the above statement is not a simple statement with the words just lying next to each other. It is about an idea and a belief that can shape your future. It is about a tool, which can be of so much help to you that you can have the life you want. Or rather you will get the life that you keep imagining for yourself.
 
  Norman Vincent Peal once said, “ if you want to know the kind of life you are going to have 5-10 years from now, take a look at your thoughts, take a look at the kind of things that you are secretly desiring” These are the seeds that you sow. They will sprout and become your reality.
 
  Thinking back, whatever I am currently, or whatever experiences I have right now, I feel are the results of conscious and subconscious thoughts I have had over the last few years. I am sure that if you think about it in a similar line, honestly, you will find that what you are right now is what you secretly wanted. Or what you thought you wanted.

  This also gives you the ability to shape your future. If you want to be a billionaire then start thinking of being one. Start feeling the vision develop in your mind. See yourself in that kind of a life.

  Similarly if you want to be a happily married person, see that vision. Do not confuse yourself by having contrasting visions of you having many affairs and still being a happily married person. Chose one and then stick by that, for that vision is going to be a reality.

  Therefore you need to figure out what you want in life and what you do not want to happen. Once you have done this you can start believing in that vision becoming a reality. Then all you have to do is wait and live in that reality that you have shaped. 

Toilet Training

  About a year back I had an interesting discussion with a colleague of mine. It was on the subject of toilet training. We work in a multinational company where the average employee is well…. above average. Or is expected to be above average in terms of education, communication skills, attitude, aptitude and many of the other aspects that are stressed on during interviews and tests. However we both realized that as far as skills in the lavatory are concerned we (excluding the two of us) flounder and are badly equipped.
 
  Let me describe the scene that greeted me today morning when I visited the loo. I didn’t have time at home and came to office. I prepared myself for a good ten minutes at that sanctorum of peace. However when I tried opening the first door (indecently there are two) I was welcomed by a most unwelcoming sight.
 
  It looked like something burst in there!!! I pray to the heavens it was only a tap! So I tried the next door. Damn, it was locked. I was desperate but not willing to compromise. So I tried the floor below the one on which I sit. BAMM the same awful sight! There was water everywhere! On the floor, on the seat, on the door. By Jove! Everywhere! I moved on to another floor, with diminishing hope, to find one toilet where I can be at peace with myself. Nope, that was nonexistent. After a couple more floors I decided to resign to my fate and keep all that I have within me.
 
  The main purpose of writing this is to stress on the importance of toilet training. I still can’t figure out how there can be so much water around. It frightens me to think of the possibilities. I always thought that the procedure was fairly straightforward. You finish your work, do the necessary final activates, get up and leave. What are the other possibilities? Standing up?
 
  Sorry about that… the very thought is frightening. Well I think they also need to grade new joinees on their hygiene and toilet awareness. Maybe have a question that resembles the following

    “Describe the normal workflow of a person reliving himself”
 
  This has to be then evaluated by the top management and an applicant can be rejected if his/her workflow is dreadful.
Whew!

Financial Aid

  I started looking at financial aid a bit too late. For the Fall term you should start being extremely serious about finding aid right from the time you apply to your course. The bare minimum you need to do is along with you application specify that you need aid. Which I did and received 30% fee waiver. But still the program is expensive and I plan to try the following, some of them I already have.

1. Mail professors asking for research opportunities – which I did twice within a gap of 3 months.

2. Mail students at the school asking them to put me in touch with departments or professors

3. Mail my clients(I work for a multinational company at the moment) telling them of my intention of doing my masters in US and asking them for advice

4. Talk to my company here and my boss and other top management looking for support

5. Searching through http://www.fastweb.com. Over here I realized that I was way too late. Most of the deadlines were around mar-April-may. I have seen other sites where its early Feb. Fulbright is one such case. The bottom line is if you want to have no regrets start early to find aid

6. Mailing everyone I know around Duke asking for help. I don’t think this is a suggestion to be followed as it rarely helps

7. Browsing through duke websites looking for any kind of suggestions on how to secure aid, though there is plenty of information nothing seems to be of concrete help.

8. Looking through www.finaid.org , didn’t find it too helpful either.

9. Tried online gambling… did not win anything. And got tired of it. 

   I’ll keep adding the other options I have tried/will try

TB Screening

  One immunization requirement for the universities in US is a TB screening test. All they specify is that TB screening should be done for international students. So I went to a doctor in Bangalore and asked him to do a TB screening test on me and find out if I have TB or not. So he asks me first if the university has specified anything else. When I tell him NO, he says then the TB screening test he can recommend is the Mantoux test. However, according to him, Mantoux test has a problem. For Indians due to the dust exposure and general inclination the Mantoux test normally shows a high response (an exaggerated response) when compared to the standards in America.

  So I ask him if for me it does show an exaggerated response then what is the course of action. Then the doc says I will have to go for a chest X Ray and have my sputum analyzed. That got me thinking… do I need to go through all this? So I put the following suggestion across to him not knowing if he will accept it or not.

  “What if we get the chest X Ray without having the Mantoux test done and based on that can you give me a report saying that I do not have TB. You can also do a physical examination.” Contrary to expectations he agreed to the suggestion. So I got the report saying that I do not have TB based on the chest X-Ray. I will fax this report to the university and see if they accept it.

  If they dont then I will have to get the Mantoux test done. The reason, according the doc, on why the university might not accept the report is that the chest X-Ray only indicates that there is no TB in the chest. However TB can come anywhere else also.

  I am against doing the Mantoux test because 1. They poke needles into you 2. It might show an exaggerated response 3. It will leave a lump on you skin that will cause the people at the airport some concern 4. The whole procedure takes about a couple of days and hence I’ll have to take leave from office.

  For those of you who are in a similar predicament deciding whether to take the Mantoux test or not wait for my next post which will specify the response from the school health department.

  If you want to know more about what the Mantoux test is and how it is administrated check out the following links

http://www.cghealth.com/webdocs/dp_tb.htm
http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/music/handbook/tb.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantoux_test

The countdown has started

  I have exactly 17 days left in Bangalore. After that 20 days in Trivandrum and then to Duke, NC where I should be for the next couple of years. Plans for today

1. Call my Chinese roommates

2. Get the TB screening done, immunization requirement at Duke. $125 over there; comes to over Rs. 6000. I can do it for about 1/10 th of that over here.

3. Find out if the university provied accommodation early since I reach the school 6 days before I am supposed to

4. Redeem the reward points on my card and cancel the credit card

5. Find out how to pay the fees at the university and how to carry cash in dollars from India.

Hair cut comments!

  A few days back I got a new hair cut. Well I went to an expensive place and told the person over there to make me look good. After the “hair job”, I got the following comments.

Dude, looks like a rodent died on your head?
Looks like you fell in a lake and the fish were at your hair!
Did you go to a cobbler instead of a barber?
You look weird!
Did you threaten to not pay the barber?(my boss)
You got a haircut?
Are you O.K? (genuinely sad face)
You look like a white African!
Tell me!!!! Who did this to you???   (with lots of passion)
But Whyyyy?
Who got you to go for this cut?
Son…… (Yeah that was my mom)

  I honestly never knew my hair was so important to so many people.