Cool Original Thought influenced by many thoughts though

:) failure or success is just a stop in the journey of life, keep moving :)

I Miss my Old Cubicle... :(

I console myself with the thoughts :

Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.
-Stephen Covey

Happiness depends not upon things around me, but on my attitude. Everything in my life will depend on my attitude.
-Alfred A montapert

"Attach happiness to goals and not things"

My old cubicle had the flash bulb over my head.
Even when the power was off in the entire wing, the bulb would be ON. I would tease others saying "There will always be light when I'm around".

Having spent 2 years and 22 days in my Old cubicle , I need to move on ...

The romantic journey came to an abrupt halt on Sept 09, 2008.

Who knows, This may be the beginning of something REALLY good.

Hope for the best and My first blog from the new Cubicle :)

Trip to Mangalore : Part 1: Jafeel's Heroics

Tour itinerary:
Members: Jafeel and Ajay(myself)

12th July 2055 hrs: Train Bangalore - Mangalore
13th July 1130 hrs: Bus Mangalore - Murdeshwar
1730 hrs: Bus Murdeshwar - Kumta
14th July 2130 hrs: Bus Kumta - Bangalore

So, you expect a very comfortable, boring trip of two days?
If you expected the above, you are totally out of target.

It was more of a ‘RUN, RUN and RUN’ kind of trip.

Vokay, let’s start our journey…

12th July 2008 : 7.50 pm
I boarded Chennai Express to Bangalore City Railway Station from Cantonment.
I call up Jafeel and he has just left his residence.

After half an hour, I’m at platform 9 waiting for Jafeel.

8.25 pm: Jafeel’s still in Hudson Circle traffic jam.

Half an hour left for the departure of the train and I’m feeling bored(specially sitting with my mouth shut – a difficult task)

Crashed my mobile twice and on restarting, I notice the time to be 8.40pm and still no trace of Mr. Jafeel. Remember that the scheduled train departure is 8.55pm.
For the first time in my life, I was praying that the train run at least half an hour late.

I call up Jafeel and still he has not made it to the Railway Station and only 5 minutes left for the arrival of the train.

Jafeel’s doing a half marathon from Hudson Circle to platform nine (extreme end of the station)..
I started thinking about the KSRTC bus service to Mangalore.

Train has arrived and where is our Jafeel?
Only Jafeel and God know ;)

It’s 8.55 pm and train may start anytime.
Latest news: Jafeel is in station and needs to come to platform nine.

Atlast, our man Mr.Jafeel makes it to platform nine and is panting heavily.

Just after 94 seconds of his arrival, the train starts.

We decide to get into General even though we had a reserved ticket.
‘Getting into the train was our main priority’.

Hmmm, Jafeel is exhausted. We decide to change the compartment in the next stop.
It’s 9.35 pm and we are enjoying the benefits of General compartments:
Free passive smoking, Free Career advice, Free soft skills training and what not 

9.45 pm: Train seems to be slowing down and when we thought it’ll stop, it gains in speed.

10.02 pm: First signs of Yawning.

10.43 pm: Atlast we get our seats. Beauty is my seat is cancelled and I’m traveling in the name of JD. He he

11.45 pm: Fifteen minutes since we are in Mysore. Jafeel is hungry and gets a pack of biscuits forgetting that he has badam, kishmish, chips in his bag.

13th July 08 Sunday, 8am I open my eyes to see Jafeel awake.

8.45 am: We reach Mangalore station. Two minutes ago, the girl sleeping in the opposite berth gets down.
I’m reluctant to get down immediately thinking ‘what will people think if I get down as soon as she got down’.
Jafeel shouts, “Abey! Mangalore aa gaya!!!”
Then I get down and narrate what I was thinking… ;)

We call Sandeep(the bridegroom) and confirm the itinerary.

By 11 am, we are ready having refreshed ourselves in a hotel (Forgot the name)
Fifteen minutes later, done with masala dosa and avlakki (breakfast).
Caught an auto and reached the bus depo.

12.06 pm: Just crossed NIT, Suratkal.
12.13 pm: Checking map for Mulki… Crossed mulki.
12.39 pm: Feeling sleepy, listening to songs.
1.17 pm: Just crossed Kallianpur.
2.06 pm: We stop at Kundapur for lunch.

3.34 pm: Reach Murdeshwar. Took an auto to beach.




3.42 pm: Inside Kamat hotel. We ordered two full meals.







5.10 pm: Done with the darshan in the temple.




5.18 pm: Tender coconuts quench our thirst.

5.40 pm: Boarded bus to Kumta.

A trial quiz

Your Life Is Worth...

$1,351,000

http://blogthings.com/howmuchisyourlifeworthquiz/">How Much Is Your Life Worth?

Life Moves on,,,, IPL, now Euro... :)

Time's 7pm:
IPL Fever begins...
Superb Match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Bangalore Royal Challengers !!!!!!!!
A superb innings by Brendon Mccullum started the IPl in great fashion.
Many star players flattered to deceive...
I had lots of hopes from Afridi, Gibbs, Symonds, Sachin, Dhoni and specially from Yuvraj !!!!

Atlast when it came to an end, the final was superb.
Went to the last ball....
And deservingly, Rajastan Royals won.

Once the IPL finished, I was feeling bored as to what to do after 7pm now...
Luckily, we started Table Tennis Tournament in our office and it's fun.
Even I participated... :)

So, I'd like to see the following team fire:
1. Jayasuriya
2. Gibbs
3. Gilchrist
4. Yuvraj
5. Symonds
6. Sohail Tanvir
7. Glenn Mcgrath
8. Shane Warne
9. Muralidharan
10. Kallis
11. Lee

Even you can post your dream teams,,,, And how are you coping up with the IPL Hangover(if any :) )

Trek to Rangaswamy Betta

Saturday 22nd March 2008
5 am Alarm Tring Tring Tring
Not Again… It’s not even cricket practice. Why was the alarm for?

Oh ! Trek… Need to be at majestic by 6.25am

Let me sleep till 5.30am…
A message from colleague wakes me up and it reads “Gentle Reminder!!!!!!! Don’t be Late!!!!!!”

I’m ready by 6am and receive a message “Need Samosas”.

Board a bus to majestic at 6.10 and reach Majestic by 6.30.
Not able to trace Rashmi and Nishchay…
Finally meet them at Platform 9. Met Kailas.
All are waiting for Ramu who is coming after finishing Night Shift.

Finally Ramu arrives at 7am.

So, all set for the trek.

7.15am : Boarded the bus to Harohalli.
Me, Nishchay and Kailas in a three seater.

Fifteen minutes later, Nishchay starts discussing about the population of different states of India.

By 8am, we are 40Kms away from Kanakpura and Kailas is sleeping.
Nishchay joins him with his music player.

Just when I plan to sleep, Nishchay wakes me up. The bus stops at Harohalli.

By 8.50am, we are done with our breakfast.
After standing at the wrong spot for few minutes, we board a TT(Tempo Traveller) to Maralwadi village. It’s 9.06am.

9.30am: Reached Maralwadi village and started the trek towards the Rangaswamy Betta.

We ask a Tractor for lift and he readily agreed.
By 10.30, we reach the base of the mountain.

11am: We feel we have reached half way but it’s just a feeling…
11.30: Relaxing and the photo session has started.

By 12.10pm, hurray !!!!!!!! We have reached the mountain top. Lovely scenary awaits our cameras….
Took a lot of photos and attended puja in the small temple.

Fifteen minutes later, the puja’s done.
We move around the temple, appreciating the nature. Talk about Roaming Activation as we get messages from ‘Airtel’ welcoming us to Tamil Nadu.

We find a mango tree and start eating the small mangoes. Tasty enough.

Now, the time is 1pm and we go inside the temple for the second round of puja.
Puja’s done and the prasad’s being offered.

We have already spent 45 minutes after the puja and come to the other side of the mountain. With a wonderful scenary behind, photo sessions begin.

Till now, we have covered 4.5 Kms and 5508 steps in total. Cracking jokes, beautiful scenary and timely prasad made the 4.5 kms easy.

It’s 2pm and we start the trek down.

Half an hour later, me, Kailas and Ramu are resting on a rock. Nishchay and Rashmi are yet to reach the spot. All three are into a short nap and then the “15 Injections Experience” of Rashmi ends our nap.

At 3pm, Kailas has reached the base and whistling for us.
I reach at 3.05pm and at 3.10 all have reached the base.
WoW!!! The mountain’s conquered. Cool!!!!

Now, what about the journey to village?
The tractor saved us in the morning but now, it’s upto our legs L
So, we start the walk back from the Tractor point. It’s 3.10.

An hour has passed and we are still walking.
Hey stop that tractor!!!! Screams one of us.

The tractor driver did not agree. It’s 4.25 and we are feeling the heat.
Ten minutes later, we find a shop and eat some snacks. Took photo of the shop too.

Walking, Walking and still Walking… 5 min to 5pm and no sights of any vehicle.
We find a garden or rather a field and Rashmi tries for some Sapota luck. But Hard Luck… No good sapotas. L

So, after 2 hours and 10 minutes, we reach Maralwadi Village.
Boarded a TT to Horehalli.

Reached the village at 5.40pm.

Searched for another hotel and ate dosas and some coffee too.
Fanta and Water finished our snack session. J

Again by walk, we reached the busstop.

No sights of a Majestic Bus.
Finally at 6.40pm, boarded a bus to Market.

Reached Jayanagar at 7.50pm and at 8.10pm reach Market.

The group is overjoyed and we go back to our homes satisfied.
And a bit TIRED too….

A good trip , enjoyable and memorable…
Nice Photo sessions too… J

HOW TO REMEMBER

This post will go through the different techniques used to remember and increase one’s memory power EASILY.

I will take you through all the different techniques I have applied and got favorable results. Here again, some of the techniques might be known to most of you and some of them might be a real surprise for many.

OK! Let’s start.

Let’s play a simple game (memory) first.

************ GAME ************

Take 9 minutes of your time and try to remember the following 30 words IN ORDER.

Your Time starts now.

1. Olive Green

2. Hypothalamus

3. Fish Tank
4. Ikebana

5. Lime Juice

6. Meteorite
7. Stapler

8. 2-Bedroom flat

9. TFT Monitor
10. Alarm Clock

11. Key Chain

12. Coupons
13. Paneer curry

14. ‘Taal’ Movie

15. Credit Card
16. Shoe Brush

17. Sewing Machine

18. Access Card
19. Digital Camera 7.1 Mega Pixel
20. Calendar
21. Gold Ring
22. Iron Box
23. A piece of Chalk
24. Spinal Cord
25. Rope
26. Ball point pen
27. Exception Error
28. Chocolate
29. State Capital
30. Automation tool

******** GAME ENDS ********

Now, try writing all the 30 words in order.

For every word in its right position, award yourself 1 point.
Let the score be termed as ‘SCORE 1’.

Now, let’s learn some simple techniques to help our brain remember things quickly.

Technique 1:
‘Rhyme to Connect’ words

Technique 2:
Friends Help

Technique 3:
‘Story ki koi kami nahin’

I assure you, time taken to learn these techniques would be < 10 minutes each and the results would astonish you.






Technique 1: ‘Rhyme to Connect’ words

This technique is also known as the ‘Peg’ technique.

Here you have a rhyming word for each of the numbers



(1 – Bun, 2 – Boo, 3 – free, 4 – more, 5 – thrive, 6 – fix, 7 – heaven, 8 – wait, 9 – fine, 10 – pen). This is just an example. Have your own rhyming words which you can remember every time.



Now, the words (1-10) I gave were:

1. Olive Green

2. Hypothalamus

3. Fish Tank

4. Ikebana

5. Lime Juice

6. Meteorite

7. Stapler

8. 2-Bedroom flat

9. TFT Monitor

10. Alarm Clock



So, start connecting the rhyming words with the words to be remembered. Our brain remembers things better when they are funny or filled with humor and induce a chuckle.

No wonder, we remember Comedy Scenes in a movie.



1 – Bun – Olive Green

The Connection between the two words must be as funny/creative as possible.



How about, having a Bun with Olive Green Paint as chutney?



Trust me, you’ll remember better.



2 – Boo – Hypothalamus

Every time you Boo someone, the size of the Hypothalamus (in Brain) doubles.



3 – Free – Fish Tank

All the fish from the fish tank are free for an hour and are on a shopping spree in the City market.



4 – More – Ikebana

Ikebana is a style of flower arrangement from Japan. Give me an idea for this!!!



5 - Thrive – Lime Juice

Imagine your pet thriving only on Lime Juice. It likes Lime Juice and nothing else!



6 – Fix – Meteorite

A magical meteorite would fix all the water problems of this world.



7 – Heaven – Stapler

The authorities in Heaven forgot to staple your application form to Heaven.



8 – Wait – 2 bedroom flat

Your fans are made to wait outside your 2 bedroom flat on your birthday.



9 – Fine – TFT Monitor

You have a fine TFT monitor (size – 0.023mm thickness)



10 – Pen – Alarm Clock

The Alarm Clock fires pens at you to wake you up.



The first connection you get among the two words will be remembered the longest.



Congratulations! You now remember the first set of ten words



Technique 2: Friends Help
Here, you have ten friends in mind.
The same ten friends/relatives/places should come to your mind in the same order.
1. Key Chain
2. Coupons
3. Paneer curry
4. ‘Taal’ Movie
5. Credit Card
6. Shoe Brush
7. Sewing Machine
8. Access Card
9. Digital Camera 7.1 Mega Pixel
10. Calendar

Suppose your best friend ‘Urvashi’ is at the third position in your friends list and you need to remember ‘Paneer Curry’.

So, it may be:
Urvashi likes ‘Paneer Curry’ the most… Urvashi hates the ‘Paneer Curry’ the most… Or Urvashi cooked ‘Paneer Curry’ for you with NO PANEER!

Similarly, have 1 friend/relative at each of the 1-10 positions. The same person must come to your mind every time you think of 1-10 positions.

Technique 3: ‘Story ki koi kami nahin’
This technique is my favorite. We all have had heard a lot of stories.Story building skills is a major ingredient in using this technique
3: ‘Story ki koi kami nahin’.

The third set of words (21-30) are:
Gold Ring
Iron Box
A piece of Chalk
Spinal Cord
Rope
Ball point pen
Exception Error
Chocolate
State Capital
Automation tool

We need to build a story out of these ten words.

The story should be as original as possible. More the creativity, easier to remember.

Let’s start building the story. An example of a story is as follows:

A nice Gold ring presented on your birthday, is melted using an Iron box to get a piece of chalk. The piece of chalk is used to draw a figure on your Spinal Cord and then you realize that your Spinal Cord is replaced by a Rope. The Rope is used to catch the Ball point pens fired at you. Once you catch all the pens, you receive an ‘Exception Error’ message on your mind screen. You realize that it’s a dream/game and you get a Chocolate worth .023 paise on successful completion of the game. You are called upon in the State Capital, to present an ‘Automation tool’ to solve the game.

Congratulations! You now remember the last set of ten words.

Now, what are you waiting for?

Go through the list of 30 words again and write the words in order. Scoring pattern: 1 point for each correct word in its right position. This is ‘SCORE 2’.

I assure you, the ‘SCORE 2’ would definitely be more than ‘SCORE 1’.
Congratulations for achieving ‘SCORE 2 > SCORE 1’.

Thanks for your valuable time.

Also, let me know how you remember things, any specific technique you follow.
Please don’t forget to mention your SCORE 1 and SCORE 2.
The more the difference (+ve of course) (SCORE 2 – SCORE 1) would encourage me.

Ajay
ajay184f@yahoo.com

How to Study ? [Specially for Students]

How to Study:
I followed some known age-old techniques and then some totally new and interesting techniques to study:
One thing I’d like to stress on is that one needs to have interest to know something and only then he can concentrate/grasp knowledge about that particular subject. Interest plays a vital role in a student’s life. The more a student is interested in a subject, the better he’ll score and grasp the finer points.

So, first create interest for that subject. Now “how do you make a dull subject interesting” is a good question. There should be something called as GOAL or LAKSHYA in one’s life. He must constantly remind himself about the goal and the path; how this particular subject would get him nearer to his goal. Studying becomes a joy once the subject becomes interesting.

Also, our mind is a superb servant but a bad master. So, the tuning of mind to a servant or a master is always in our hands. What goes in to our minds as thoughts are reflected in our actions. The tuning of the mind should be done in the form of reading good books, discussing with knowledgeable people, exercise and finally hobbies and sports.

Once the raw materials (pun intended) like mind, the subject, goal is ready, we are ready to study. Proper lighting and studying at the same time in the same location helps to a great extent. Proper lighting helps to concentrate better and for long durations.

Now during exam times, I always found students asking me questions such as :
1. How to prepare a timetable?
2. Which subject to study first?
3. Which is the best time to study?
4. Should I study only one subject for 2-3 days or 2-3 subjects in one day?
5. Should I make notes or write the answers and practice?
6. Should I refer previous year’s question papers?
7. How should I revise and how often?
8. I totally forget once I enter the examination hall. What should I do?
9. How to answer a question?
10. Should I attend extra coaching/tuitions?

I’ll answer the above questions one by one….

1. Preparing a timetable:
Consider you have 6 subjects to study:
A, B, C, D, E and F.
Time available Feb 15th to March 14th.

The exam dates : March 15, 17, 19, 22, 24 and 25

Order of exams: A,B,C,D,E,F.

Now I will not study anything except A on 13th and 14th. I would end my revisions on 10th.

The mistake everyone does in planning a timetable to study is to start from Feb 15th
like Feb. 15th A- 2 chaps, B 1chap…
Feb 16th A next 2 chaps, B 1 chap…
And then finally come to March 10…14…

What I suggest is plan backwards…

March 10th: A: 6-end chaps revision. B: 4-end chaps revision.
March 9th: A: 1-5 chaps revision. B: 1-3 chaps revision.
…..
…. Keep on subtracting the chapters you have covered and you’ll know exactly how much to cover from the first day itself.
….
Feb 16th: A: 3-5 chaps, B: 2-3 chaps
Feb 15: A: 1-2 chaps….

If we start from Feb 15th and move on to March 10th, in the end we’ll be pressurized to cover more portions in the nth moment.
So, planning backwards really helps.


2. Subject to study first:
Tougher subjects need to studied early and more. With the above timetable, have the toughest subject to study when you are fully fresh.

3. Best time to study:
Depends on individual’s preference. Early morning is as good as late night. I’d prefer early morning. Also, just before sleeping don’t watch TV or hear music. The last thing you do before sleeping is always fresh in mind. So, study and head to BED.

4. one subject or 2-3 subjects?
2-3 subjects according to timetable.

5. Notes?
While studying the subject for the first time make notes. These should consist of important (key) points and nothing else. These should be used while revising at the last minute.

6. Question Papers:
These give you a clear idea of how the questions were set and what you can expect. Very useful to refer and practice answers for them as 25% of the current year’s questions are from previous year’s question papers.

7. Revision:
Revise as often as possible. For everything a timetable would guide you.

8. Forgot in Exam Hall
The problem is then you are just glancing during studies and ‘no grasping after understanding’ was done.
More concentration and a bit of relaxation would help.

9. Answering Method:
Key points should be underlined. Answer in points with the above format.
Key point 1
Explanation of the key point.

Key Point 2
Explanation of the key point.

When answering an essay type, make sure you answer in small paragraphs.

10. Extra coaching?
Depends on subject and coaching. If the subject is totally tough to understand, better attend coaching than repent later.

Finally, what you visualize in your mind is what you get.
Visualize that you are answering the exam well before every night’s sleep(specially the day before exam).
Have a clear picture of your goal in your mind. It helps.

Have a good night’s sleep. Revise once. And enjoy the exam and the results of hard work.

Good Luck.

Ajay
ajay184f@yahoo.com