Another move...., and Nice people..!!!

I have a bad(?) habit of looking at myself as a fool even for small mistakes. There are some situations in which I don't know how exactly I am supposed to behave - when a person conveys someone's regards to me, I am almost always not sure - how to respond. :) - which happened yesterday! :(
[This could be rooting from my perfectionism]

Well, that's not the topic. I relocated yesterday. This was by far the most hectic, but pleasant move till date. My friend and her dad helped me out with it.

There are many people on this planet - who would help others out. But there aren't that many people - who would go out of their way to help others. This dad was such a person. A very nice person. After being with him for a day, I couldn't help comparing him with my own dad. Are all dads like this? -- so helpful?

I have always found it good to talk with elder people - there is always some gyan (knowledge) we get from them. It was no different yesterday. More than the gyan, it is their perspective which gives me different views on things.

After the packing, move and unpacking (75%), I have given today for rest. I haven't eaten anything since morning - which means, I should go eat now.

But before leaving, I have a question (below) for my readers.

I have had this problem a couple of times. When I eat out with my father, and a friend of mine, I would just leave the bill part to my dad. Neither I nor my dad would let my friend pay. But when I am eating out with a friend and his/her father, I am on the other side and I feel a little awkward if I don't pay for the group. I am contradicting myself with my actions - but I find both to be just fine.

I felt a little awkward yesterday! Then I later thought - it's a simple matter; Why do I fret a lot about that. :) Right? [connect again to perfectionism?]

This is a very simple thing. What would be the best thing to do?

So, I am starting to live in a new place - as a paying guest, with a German family. I am eagerly looking forward to the life here! and to the new experiences! :)

Signing off,
Sands.

PS: The above mentioned friend would most probably read this! So, I better don't praise her much! ;) [Let's call this a double-bluff ;) ]

Weakened mental abilities and easy blogging

Thinking about the first few days of engineering reminds me of a couple of things - starting from the horrible English of some lecturers up to the following thing.

It was one of those days someone said - "Now, you all can do very fast mental arithmetic. But now since you all are starting to use electronic calculators, you are slowly going to lose your ability to do this mental-magic"

Sure thing... some cashier in some local restaurant in India might do a faster job of number crunching than some math professor here. It's all about using that part of the brain. I wonder whether any professor adds any numbers larger than 100 in his mind. (No offense... professors are intelligent, smart people.. but they never need to do such trivial stuff, that's what I meant. They have more important things to think)

Luckily, I didn't lose that speed of mental math. Or perhaps not as much as many others did. Lucky I. :)

Unfortunately, I fell into another trap. And that is mobile phone.

Earlier, any phone-number I dialled was stored in my mind. I had to dial a number _once_ and only _once_ and it was recorded. But now, all that job is done by the small little computer inside the mobile phone. That part of brain which used to do the job is jobless and (to an extent .. useless too :( )

It is like cooking - by looking at a recipe book. The food might turn out to be good, but you never remember the procedure. (credits for idea: AJ - a fan of mine ;) )

But as you can see, it is not a bad thing after all. These new technologies are made for making the life easier and they do make life easier.

Now I shall come to the point which is of more interest to us all. BLOGGING.

I remember a time when I used to use the blogger interface to put a post. For making the post really beautiful .. or say, to fine tune it, I had to edit the HTML itself.

Later came better technologies - starting from scribefire to live-writer. Especially after live-writer came along, I never had to think about the processes in the back-ground. Inserting a picture became so easy that I started having a picture in almost every post. Blogging became so easy. [The minus being - only in Windows is it available]

Integration of RSS-readers with Browsers is another wonderful thing (Mac and Windows). I spend more time with Linux than with MS-Windows - but truly speaking - till date Windows is much better for a blog-life - both for publishing and for reading too. :) [Another nice thing if you are entering the blog-world is Google-Reader]

So what is the downside here? Life became easy at the cost of forgetting all those smart things I knew about fine-tuning a web-page! :(

So much for it. Now, there is something else I wanted to write. Perhaps after a couple of days. :)

Signing off, Sands.

~

For Another Change

I just shamelessly copied the blog colors from some other blog.

I have anyway stored the old template. If this looks too un-readable, then I might switch back as soon as possible. I am starting to doubt about the readability already.

This is a background color which I have seen in one German blog (Daniela's Gedanken).

Please do opine.

Otherwise, it was an almost night out for me last night. But not surprisingly, I did finish lot of work in a single night (of course, that's why I put a night-outer right? )

Had wanted to write a lot. Really a lot. But too sleepy to do that. :)

Signing off, Sands.

~

For a change..

First of all --  a little smile :) ... just for you! :) Now read on! ...

It's been quite some since I read some non-technical book. I cannot actually recollect -- which was the last fiction I read. (the little prince?)

Anyway, for a change, I started with the well celebrated novel - Pride and Prejudice. I started with it after being compelled a lot by someone.

I can totally understand that - the feeling to compelling someone - because whenever I read some wonderful stuff, or watch some nice thing, I strongly recommend those things to my friends. To some of them who are very close, I sometimes even insist on them reading the stuff I loved.

I have forced some of my friends to read a couple of books. Have insisted on them watching some nice shows. I don't know why would we do that - is it just the pleasure of knowing the dear ones too are having the same nice experience we had? Should be it, right?

Well it can't be totally true.. as I was forcing a friend of mine to watch a documentary "Survivors' guide to plane crashes" -- just two days before she was to fly. All my intention was to get her scared.

After watching that one, though ultimately informative, I was really not ready for an air-travel. Also, in all  of my later flights, I avoided alcohol : the reason - to be on the safer side. :)

But actually I really wanted to make her more knowledgeable about the kind of things which could happen during a flight - to bring her too to the safe side.

Well, Back to main topic: So, I started with the book. Usually, I have a threshold of 40 pages  - which means, if I get past 40 pages of any book, I'll mostly finish it. There are times where I reach about till 40 and drop the book and pick it up some other time.

But this book .. I just read through. The very first time I took a break was at 49. All the same, disappointingly, my reading speed is pretty low with this book. It could be because of the real old English (the book is 200 years old) and the different style. I really liked the book. This must be the oldest book I have ever read -- if not considering the epics/mythology. Well... let me finish it soon!

Other than that.. I'd been totally confused lately - like never before. I cannot point out why.. but the confusions arise mainly from the thoughts of "What can I do", "What should I do", "How can I do" -- something for the problems persisting in the world right now, starting from terrorism to gender-inequality to global-warming. Every one should do something .. I too should.

I need a proper action plan and I am making that action plan. In fact, the first post related to these global problems was posted in my Malayalam blog. But I think, I'll follow it up here in the world of English.

Turned out to be longer than what I had intended.

Signing off, Sands.