It's exactly one week back I landed back in Munich. One week is over, I still haven't settled down properly. I still haven't had two consecutive days which were the same. Quite a lot of things to be finished. Is it because I was absent for a month? May be...
Life is a good teacher. I always thought I am a good student with all the quick learning abilities. What happens when life teaches you much more than you can take at a time?
Let's do a comparison of life in India and Germany. Back there, life is very slow. For a PhD student, there won't be anything other than his studies/research (if any). He doesn't have to do anything other than his curricular things. Everything is given to him by default, everything is taken for granted. Even his teaching assistantship is an easy thing to do. He needn't take classes, he needn't prepare weekly class notes. He even lives in the campus itself.
At the same time here one needs to do his work along with making a living. Nothing is taken for granted. He has to start with making every morning's coffee/tee, till the dinner, then even cleaning the kitchen. Here, one has to do his daily shopping, commute to college, go to offices to get his accommodation ready, insurance OK, etc.
I was just thinking about the things I've been doing / done in the past one week.
- Preparing for the regular tutorial
- Preparing for the extra make-up tutorial
- My regular studies
- Settling down work - starting from doing the basic shopping
- Back to German class
- Meeting my wards (?) yeah, the sandwich students - This is no more a duty. I enjoy meeting them.
- Making arrangements to make sure that I get a room in another one month
- Getting my ausweis (ID) again (this is my mistake.. I lost the first one I got)
- Making sure than the insurance people get all the needed documents they need - so that they won't trouble me in future.
Running around here and there, meeting people and getting things done is not at all an easy task. As you know, going to some place to get something done takes a minimum of two hours. And many times you will have to make more than a trip to get one thing done.
In between these, I am supposed to give the exam for my German
LKG. The teacher has given the question paper to me and asked me to answer it from home and submit it tomorrow. She trusts me it seems. Yeah, sounds nice to hear that. But I only know that it takes up another 2 hours of my time.
I was complaining to myself. I was even complaining that "
I am complaining too much lately". While looking for the reasons behind this time-stress I could find two of them. One is that I want to do many things in the very little available time. And the second reason is temporary - I was absent for sometime, and I have to make up the things I left out. You know what?, when I think I am a little stressed, I look up to some professors or high officials and console myself by saying "
learn dude, learn how to manage... some day you have to be like them". That really gives me more enthu. Getting more stressed actually increases my enthu.
This all is training for life. The life is busy and I am coping up with this. I still haven't lost in this competition with the fast flying time.
Like they say - "
The bad news:
Time flies.
The Good news:
You are the pilot".
I wasn't planning to put a post till this evening. In the evening I got a mail from my sister. She is a little stressed with her assignments, records, graphics-sheets and some other stuff. And she feels bad that she isn't able to manage things. I replied to her email... and thought that a few years back I wouldn't have been able to do what I am doing now. Life has taught me. Some day I was like her - struggling to manage all my work. Now I have grown to the next level. So, I know after two years when she will turn back, she would find all these stressful things to be cake-walks. So would I too. :)
For the past two-three days another funny thing is happening. My
future-don't-know-who friend also is very busy like me (or even busier). So sometimes in gtalk, we just exchange four or five words and then say "
dude, I am busy... catch you later". Every time I have this kind of 4 line chat with him, I smile. Poor guy, he is getting heavenly screwed by all the profs where as I am getting screwed by all the works which I myself have volunteered to do. Anyway self-screwing is better than getting screwed by someone.
Again Why? - just for the reason that we weren't happy serving some software giants to get thick pay-cheques.
Anyway, I have finished almost all my work till today and tomorrow onwards I am busy with my normal life. Nothing much of the vacation is remaining. Now I can start my regular work.
The title of the post comes from here "
A diamond is just another piece of coal that did well under pressure".
Present song:-
"
Oru nullu kaakkappooo kadam tharumo..?
Oru koona thumbappooo pakaram tharam....Adharathal vaariyal pinangumo nee?
Athu ninte chodikalil virinjathallae...? "
It translates as follows...
female sings
"
Will you lend me a little of kakka-flowers?
I shall give you a heap thumba-flowers in return.... "
male replies
"
Will you be angry if I take them with my lips?
Aren't the flowers blossomed on your lips..?"
Romantic, isn't it?
Signing off, Sands.
PS: Isn't it nice to hear good things about self? My friend who visited me sometime back was telling me that he has to meet me more frequently. You know why? He thinks I always spread some positive energy around me and talking to me gives him some enthu it seems. Yeah, he made my day!
Hooray!!
