Instant Friendship

We are instant friends,
in this world of instant everything.

Two strange souls,
brought together.
In the place,
where we are strangers,
we find our familiarity
and in that blooms
our instant friendship

Conditioned by the cold world
I want to think -Why,
Just why would you be
nice to me?

And then one day,
There's a fire alarm,
a sudden situation of panic

People are running out the door,
and your first reaction,
is to hold my hand tight,
like you just sensed my fear,
and you immediately reached out,
and you lead me to the door.

And at that moment,
I lose all my cynicism,
and realize, that instant,
as it may be,
we still have a beautiful friendship!

Sudden thought of the day

You know what amazes me about teaching and learning, the fact that by sharing, it grows. It’s like you share a little bit of your treasure with someone else, and now you both have equal pieces of treasure. Yours is not any lesser, and yet you have transferred a bit of your treasure. In fact, when you share, your knowledge grows. It’s like one ignited mind, setting another on fire and so on and so forth and the whole world is illuminated, with no one losing so much as a flicker.How wonderful is that?

I know it is an obvious fact, and has been said before and all that. but still, how amazing is that? :)

Greenville downtown trip

So today I went all by myself to Downtown to see a little bit of the place before I return back home. I could write an essay on how scared I was of getting lost, but I bet it won't be interesting. Instead I present to you pictures.

This is just outside my Hotel. A beautiful Rainbow!

A Vespa in USA?

A restaurant near the Falls Park on the Reedy

A nice building in front of the Park

The Liberty Bridge

The Falls

Suspension bridge as seen from below

And a smaller bridge

I was here!

And here.. another bridge

A plane, some kind of a memorial

Another nice sight in the Falls Park

Sights on the road

Little images on the pavement

??!!!!

This was a person of importance, I don't recall who!

Just a building!

Nice sculpture along the pavement

Free trolley that I got on and off as I got around downtown

A walk on the downtown roads

The secret ways of my work

I sincerely hope my bosses at work are not reading this. :)

Well, when I am stuck at work, I employ some techniques to get ahead. It makes me smile to think about them, but it works.

So today, I am looking at a task, as a part of my training. They have given me a requirement and asked me to develop it. So far, I was re-doing whatever was already developed, so I had a reference. Now, I have to come up with a design on my own. So as will be the case, I was stuck.

So this is how I approached it.

1.  I tried to glance through all the documents. I cannot read exhaustively and understand well at the first read. So generally, I read twice or may be more to understand a document well. The first read is what can be called a perusal, where I am just going through, without getting an in-depth understanding. So now I know what topic the document covers and what is where in the document, if haven’t slept off by then that is.
2. Which leads us to point 2, sleep over it. No need to pack up and go home. Just close your eyes, take a power nap, take a break. :)  Today I actually nodded off till a colleague walked in to chat with me. Good I had my back to her and my head up straight. :)
3. Once fresh, I read through the document again, and now it makes 50% more sense. I am looking at things in a way that I didn’t look at earlier. Newer perspective. And the world is a whole lot better!
4. I list down my understanding of what needs to be done, and the steps needed to do it. At this level, questions will begin to spring up, and I will get it clarified. No matter how long it makes, I ensure that my questions have answers, even if I have to look them up myself.
5. And so now that I have understood what needs to be done, and have an idea on how to do it, I start. I ensure that I do not make any assumptions; it will kill the work, and is the most dangerous thing as far as a programmer is concerned.
6. So I start, by breaking it up into tiny baby steps which will not overwhelm me and then get going. I plan on what I will do for how long, and if have exceeded one deadline that I set, I know it will impact the overall deadline, and will work accordingly.

So there… that’s how I get things going at work.  :)

I hope someday

I hope someday
I live my life
like a free bird.

I hope someday
I would wake up
without ever worrying
What the world thinks of me

I hope someday
I wouldn’t look at other people
and wish I were them

I hope someday
I wouldn’t worry
about every measure there is
to measure me and everyone else

I hope someday
I live my life
like a free bird

I hope someday
I would find the courage
to break my mental cage.

PS: This is not to sound pessimistic, Which I promise to myself, I would never be, and not to send a negative vibe. Any time I feel helpless, I just need to remind myself, that it is just me stopping myself. And When I or you find the courage to break that cage of inhibitions, fears, self-doubts, we wouldn't have anything to feel helpless about. I am all about hope and positive thoughts and it has never failed me in my life. But once in a while, I do like to take out the negative thoughts through words. And then I can smile. :)

What goes around... comes around

When I travelled to Greenville, I was worried about reaching the hotel from the airport. I had requested that someone come to pick me up, but nobody agreed. They said the hotel would provide a shuttle. But only they wouldn’t do it at midnight. But I felt it futile to ask again, so I left it. Why was I concerned? I was landing at 11 PM and was worried. If it were day time, I wouldn’t be worried, because I have visited US before and have an idea. I could just go and get myself a taxi. But I was worried about going alone at midnight.

I told myself that if I didn’t feel confident enough, I would just wait at the airport and then leave when day breaks. It was in the immigration queue that I met another Indian who was to travel to Greenville in the same flight as me. I was worried I might miss my flight and I was asking him for time and that’s how I came to know that we were travelling to the same place. We met again in the plane and got talking. He said that they were going to hire a car and that we could go together. He was working at the same place that I was going, and was staying the same place that I had to go to. So I was happy. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to travel alone. And you know what they say, known devil is better than unknown angel. Not that he was devil or anything… 

So we got off the plane and this guy has his luggage missing. He has his GPS in it and hence he can’t take a car. Without GPS, how would he know which way to go? Better still, he and his companions don’t have any dollars on them. Their company had not given them cash and were yet to load cash on their traveller’s card. So there they were option less. 

So I waited for them and paid for the taxi that we took together. I felt I must do it for them. For it could have been me, stuck there like that. Only, I checked if my traveller’s card was loaded before travelling. I was alone, so I was more than prepared.

I felt nice about helping people like me. They stayed for a week and left.

And in my team here, there is an Indian girl. I am getting trained by her. And she is such a sweet girl. I was just telling her that I am settled fine, but just that without a cooker, it was taking a little longer to cook. And immediately she gave me her electric cooker. And to top that, yesterday they took me out for shopping. I had such a nice time. And am so grateful.

It is nice to see people willing to help. I felt Indians abroad were not helping fellow Indians as much. But this just proves me wrong.

And when I think about it, I felt what goes around , comes around. And that we mustn’t think about helping others. We must just do it.

More pictures from Greenville

Small Lake behind the Office

Random beautiful house

Rose for sale

More flowers

In different sizes and shapes

Small waterfall near my hotel

Dish at the Thai Restaurant I went to yesterday. Yummy!!!

Another Dish

Images from the Restaurant

And some more.....