Tribute to (another) her and Part TWO

I should be writing this in my German blog. But this is the blog with more readers and English is still easier than German. :)

I finished 8 levels of German lessons. Tomorrow is the last class. Now,

• I am able to do some small decent conversations in German.
• I can read and understand average level text.
• I am good enough to give my conversation-partner a chance to choose English or German.
• I can respond to people - when they start speaking with me in German - without being perplexed.
• More than my language skills, my confidence to speak in German has grown up - in better words, I am no more hesitant/reluctant.

All these 8 levels were with the same teacher - Daniela. Perhaps the best teacher I've ever had in my life. Through these 20 months of classes, our relationship has grown more than student-teacher one. We are good friends now.

Almost all of my life here in Munich, she has known me and I met her during her first month of stay in Munich.

Whatever little bit of German I know, is because of her - all the credit goes to her. Hats off to her, Thanks to her. With this entry I want to show at least a small fraction of the unbounded gratitude I have.

Well, I am not sure, whether I'll be doing another course. I had wanted to do one more - to put a polish on top. But I haven't made up my mind yet. If the decision is "NO", then tomorrow will be the end of my German language studies. Else, it will be after 6 weeks from now.

Well, I cannot avoid writing about Ewelina too. For the past few months, she is my conversation-partner. She too is definitely more than a classmate. A very nice girl on whom I started to develop a crush and later I crushed the crush - for various reasons.

Part Two - Coincidences

Do I believe in miracles/coincidences? Honestly - NO. But how do I explain when highly improbable things just happen?

The latest example would be this: The moment I was about to write about Ewelina, she rang me up. It's not a very frequent thing I write about her, nor she rings me up. But it happened.

Another example: For months together I might not have any contacts with Dinil; I might not even think about him. But on a fine day I think about him and within 24 hours I get a call/email from him. This is really unbelievable - but this has happened many times. I have even told some other friend of mine - about this.

Yet another example: Last weekend, I watched "Dasavatharam" and I told my friend a quote by someone - "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away" - which was of course to criticize the film.

Later when I looked up who had said that, I saw, it was by "Antoine de Saint Exupéry" - whose book I had read just 3 days earlier. It is again a rare event that I read a french book (in English though) and it was the first time I quoted that thing and both are from the same fellow!!!!!!

Boy!!! Are coincidences that common place? These along with my lately-developed-mind-reading skills are stunning me!

Got to leave, Signing off, Sands.

PS1: The movie was ultra-mega-bad. At least 5 characters could have been avoided - re-read the quote.

PS2: No proof reading as an urgent call came. Please bear with me for the mistakes.

PS3: Picture - I @ Neuschwanstein.

PS4: Conversation-partner is a single word in German and I can't find a good equivalent in English. (Influence! Sigh!)

Readers and Reflections!

I got a quite valuable feedback from a regular reader. And that matters a lot to me. Let me tell you a small story first.

While I was teaching the Fundamental Algorithms course, just about 15-20 minutes into the class, some students used to get up and go. Towards the end of the class there would be only about two thirds of the initial strength. Needless to say, this used to upset me. 

I contacted the another teacher and told him about this. He told me - "The students who come for this course are from different backgrounds and some of them already know what we are teaching, so they leave once they find that the topic is already known".

He also mentioned to me that the whole point of giving the lecture was to teach the students something new - even if there is only one student who benefited from that class, it's better than having none. Yes, it does make sense.

Basically, the interest of the *really* interested ones are really important. And even that single vote counts. [On a second reading, this paragraph makes more sense than I had intended. *You* may want to read this paragraph a few times].

Hence, as per the suggestion of the regular reader, I keep my tech and non-tech blogs still separate. :)

Signing off, Sands.

PS: This is not something which should be written in a PS, still... I have never been able to surprise my parents. They seem to know what I think. And every now and then, they give me terrific surprises! Hats off to them.

Small mess up!

Just came from the class. When you have a set of students of which some of them are computer science graduates and some are civil engineering graduates, and you are teaching algorithm analysis - it could be a night mare. There are about 22 students.

The moment I write down something, the experts give out the answer. Then I tend to go fast, and the newcomers to comp-science would find it difficult! And the ones who already know the subject, they are frying me in the class. And once in a while, I am pretty good at messing up too.

Today, somehow, I swapped the names of selection sort and insertion sort. Just after I started, I realized the mistake. Immediately these guys started attacking me with in vigor. For like 2 minutes, I went pale and confused myself. Later I did it really coolly.

I guess, this is good. Next class, I will be wonderfully prepared. :)

Anyway, at the end, when I asked one of the guys, he told me that he understands more from my class than from the other teacher - and hence he comes only to my class!! (Isn't that delighting?)

Gotta go, signing off, Sands.