Who invented high heels?!

The last purchase which I absolutely regret is a pair of formal heels for 50$.
Look incredible but feel horrible.
Understandably so. When you try and squeeze the five inches your toes take into a half an inch of space they are kind of piled on top of each other. Uggh..
Just add your feet suddenly being lifted in that position by three inches and bingo, suddenly walking doesn't come naturally anymore.
For starters they reduce the pace of my walk by one tenths and they make you concentrate on walking like never before.
Then after 2 minutes of walking/standing you experience immense and growing pain in your calf.
Then the back pain starts and obviously your toes used to the five inch space are trying to get used to the excruciating discomfort.
I have used these for precisely 3 occasions before permanently giving up on them.
Predictably, right now I am on a search for new pairs of formal FLAT shoes.
BTW shopping is always a joy.

Sudha Murthy

I just read One of Sudha Murthy's books called 'Wise and Otherwise'.
It was outstanding to say the least, written so simply and straight from the heart.
This book was some experiences from her life. She handles the philanthropic division of Infosys and came across as an honest and simple person.
I know I am stressing overly on simple but it is tough to remain the way she is being Narayanan Murthy's wife.
I admire her so much because she has always had the courage to stand by her convictions. Her book shows us very simple things( that honesty is not associated with wealth etc.) in a beautiful way.
A must read.

Fake for most parts

I hate the normal recruiting process. I find it artificial for most parts and it is a pain to go through it.
Firstly, I hate those career center instructions of always smiling and being absolutely energetic. In a career fair you see people scowling at each other in private and suddenly putting on this huge smile the moment they have to talk to a recruiter. In most cases the recruiter smiles back with equal honesty.
Then you see people talking so energetically, and explaining all what they have done in their career even if the recruiter does not ask. Trying to make that thirty second impression. I am so bad at this, it is not funny.
Eventually, if the recruiter asks what they did in their previous internship or job, they proceed to explain like it was the most incredible in the world. Its actually hilarious to observe this.
I don't want to start on the interview process but let me say this. If you probably wake up a person who has been to an interview recently at 2 in the night he will probably rattle of his strengths and weaknesses and how he was born to lead..
Coming to think of it, it makes recruiters' jobs pretty tough to find the real person behind all the smiles. It also beats me why they ask those cliche interview questions, maybe to check if the candidate can learn well.
Wish the recruitment process had more honesty in it.

Agonising

I am too critical of my writing and hate reading it again. I just write as a burst of expression and have to restrain myself from deleting it if I ever read it( it also doesn't help if you have Vinita as a friend).
Anyway the things I have promised myself to improve upon:
1. Speaking slowly. ( I speak at the rate of just 400 words per minute)
2. Writing without typos.( I have largely improved this, going through the painful process of re reading my stuff).

Optimizing the Amount

How much can you fill in a day? How much can you take on? These are a few questions that I occasionally have, essentially whether I am doing enough per day.
I remember last semester I was doing so much stuff, I nearly burned myself out towards the end of the semester. I wrote so much, I needed a huge break; with exams and auditing courses I felt I was saturated with information and thankfully my India hiatus came at the right time.
This semester I approached things cautiously. I resigned from writing opinion pieces, and started out writing once in 2 weeks. No auditing classes. Just the normal stuff.
And then I realized my days are nearly as full as before. I guess you just adapt yourself to however much you are doing to a certain extent. The more you believe you can do( as long as its not too much) the more you fit in every day. Period.
So I started taking on more stuff. Increased y writing to once a week. Started auditing a class which I liked. Simultaneously started working harder on getting Kiva's student chapter out and also joined a voluntary business consulting group.
For me what works now without burning myself is taking up a mix of things. Not exceeding a certain limit for each one. Which still makes you enthusiastic about it. Maybe it is different for different people.
Thankfully at the moment life is manageable. Touchwood!

Job security

How will I define job security? Not in ways most people define it. Not by the company and whether they have a reputation of firing people in bad times. Not by a comfortable government job( this is probably how my grandparents would!)
I am secured in my job if my work and what I contribute to the company cannot be replicated by anyone on this planet. Will my job give me the opportunity to provide that uniqueness? I hope so.
To make my point clearer I will give an example of two jobs which I do on campus. One in which I write for in the paper is unique, I am pretty sure no one can replicate my column. I bring my own unique perspective when I do gadget/ website reviews.. something which I believe is difficult to find. I have ideas to make the science page grow and opinions that will make sense.
On the contrary my other job is that of an assistant to a project manager. Most part of my job can be easily done by someone else. Its not rocket science and I haven't brought about something individualistic to it as I have brought to the other job. The only part which makes the job feel like this is mine, is when I am helping undergraduate students solve their problems. Maybe there I bring something of different value to my work.
Job security depends on an individual's contribution to his work, for most part. It is never defined by companies or economies.

A tribute

It is always important to take advice from the right people. Being the unsocial person I am here, I am glad to be in contact with few but important people who respond graciously to my bizarre queries. The few important people in US:
1. Amaresh bhaiya: I take his advice so seriously that I actually write it down. On the personal front, family friends but professionally a successful data analyst( at least that's what I think he does in Diamond). Who somehow understands how I hate technical stuff and like business stuff but I am in a sort of technical field. My constant encouraging email replier to my grumbles, idiotic queries and even book recommendations. Inspiring and irreplaceable( is that a word?).
2. Sujeev: The only senior I know of who managed to get funding while doing masters in the industrial department. Encourages me to take the toughest courses so that I learn, his advice has always always worked for me. If I am taking a 4th course or maybe extra work he always assures me its manageable.
3. Vidhi: A med school student, unfortunately far away in Dallas. My patient and rational sounding board for my crazy depressions/ ideas at times. The most rational person I have met, ever. Fun, brilliant and thankfully talks less than me.

PS1: For all the important people in India, will write one tomorrow.

Scared to death:

These are a few things I am scared of in life:

• Not being excited about going to work everyday
• Not utilising my potential before I die
• Losing my enthusiasm about learning
• Losing the love of reading and my intrinsic curiosity
• Getting married to a guy whom I don't love to death/ Dying single

Of varied interests: Part 2

So here I know something that I am going to be a pro at exists, but I am not sure what. Then came industrial engineering. I didn't want to go directly into an MBA, I somewhere still liked technical stuff.So industrial engineering came when I really needed someplace where I can get a business and mathematical intersect, and discover myself.
Here I am, as an industrial engineer and after some deliberation; have the vision of being a consultant. My strengths are peculiar:
1. I have a unique perspective on things.Essentially my opinion and feedback is unique in many ways
2. I am a natural analyzer and make natural comparisons between things in my head. Here note analyzing is not technical.
3. I like initiating things, more than most people do.
4. I am naturally interested in most things. I am interested in for example what is genomic, good design, whatever. This is the biggest hurdle I faced when choosing a career, I was told to go where I am interested in and here I have a hundred choices.. trust me that's not easy. The good part makes it that I am a natural learner. I have to keep learning no matter what I do, all the time or else I feel suffocated.
5. I love observing people and bringing together good talent, and identifying people with potential. This actually made me toy with the idea of becoming a HR manager for quite some time.

NOTE: I hate long blog posts so more on this in the next one.

Of varied interests: Part 1

I wonder, why everything is so well defined when it comes to choosing your career. It is so difficult for people like me, with no well defined interest and being curious about everything certainly doesn't help.
In India the structure of education being quite rigid,I had very little to choose from when I was entering college. I was interested in Mathematics more than biology so came the choice of being an engineer. Then came the choice of the engineering stream and I was relatively interested in physics than other things so came the choice of being a mechanical engineer.
Then into college I discovered I didn't like the complicated course maths was taking, I appreciated 2D maths and 3D calculus drove whatever little love I had left for the subject away. At the same time, I was dealing with vibrations and fluid mechanics, which were OK interesting in parts but they weren't completing me.
I was good in my subjects when I was in college, not the best because they didn't stimulate me to give my best to them. I would feel like a misfit learning them, they weren't coming to me naturally and I had to find out what comes to me like it comes to no one else.
I knew for certain it existed.

Its all about style!

I am no fashion guru, and the style I am talking about here is writing styles.
I hate words being used in the sentence to impress or just using words for the heck of it. This is a trend I have noticed in India, some people write clearly trying to impress. The point of writing is to get the point across, not to flaunt your new vocabulary( which is is clearly a misfit in every sentence). Every now and then I come across testimonials people write for each other in Orkut which are laughable because of the words used clearly to impress( they certainly make a bad impression). Why is the concept of good English and writing defined by the 'tough' words you use for such people? Even if you know words try and keep it to yourself, it is not necessary for the world to know.
For me no thesaurus exists, each word is unique and is applicable to different situations and has its own nuances. Discovering the complete meaning of each word is a joy.
I love things simple, to the point and crisp.

Inspiration Vs Imitation

To start there is a fine line between getting inspired and imitating. I have seen Hindi films which are 'inspirations' of an English film, but if I would be the producer of the corresponding English one I would go straight and sue the Hindi filmmaker right away. I thought getting inspired is to do some original work of your own because you are overwhelmed/ creatively stimulated by what just inspired you. Not nonchalantly copying the most part of your inspiration and 'in'geniusly changing the language/ costumes and then outrageously denying that you have nothing to do with the source whatsoever.
I have seen the case with fashion, books, articles where the entire idea is copied with not even a tribute to the original. At least add a tribute/ citation for something you 'know' is not your own. Or maybe the getting 'inspired' guys delude themselves to thinking it is.
On the contrary, to be in a position to inspire someone is a big deal...

In cycles..

I wonder whether this is the case with everyone but in my case creativity, enthusiasm comes in cycles. I wish this was not the case though.
An afterthought, so does reading in my case. Few years ago, I used to be in love with fiction, consuming almost anything in print. Now I prefer non fiction, but unlike a few months where I could not sleep until I read a few pages, I don't feel the need to read everyday. I am always on the lookout for great books, but it takes me 3 weeks to finish a 300 page novel. I am more interested in Walmart's story, Starbuck's story; essentially in stories but real stories.
Creativity moves along the same lines too. When I started writing a few months ago for my college newspaper I loved it. Then came days when you had to churn out stories at the same rate, but don't feel like writing but still have to( it's not a great combination). Thankfully I am pretty enthusiastic about writing now. You sort of develop a new found respect for journalists, artists and how they go through the same stuff everyday.
One thing about cycles: the peaks are awesome!

Who is out there?

This is post is titled pretty crazily, but ya I was wondering today whom am I writing for? I don't want to write for the whole world, I want a more selective audience(if any). I know my friends don't read this, they view this as interesting as a history chapter( they are mostly into the sciences). I guess I just want the world to know through my blogging but this is the world I don't know anything about. Its kind of like standing at the edge of the cliff and shouting out loud and not caring if anyone is listening.

Had a tough day, the third core member wasn't convinced, I am still on the look out. I just have one issue when I look for people I don't compromise. This is not a great thing, but I guess that's the way I am!

"Finding Nemo"

Well, I have promised myself to be more regular with my blog. Not because it took considerable time to retrieve it( I had nearly forgotten the URL), but because its nice to have a place where you can pen your thoughts. That way they don't stay in you head too much.
Anyway this new year has been good so far, my classes have started and today was an OK day. I wish my work will make me feel more stimulated, so I have been thinking of starting a student organisation of my own for quite some time now. It will be a student chapter on Kiva, an organisation I love for the work they do.
My problem right now is finding intelligent volunteers as the core group of the organisation. An out of box thinker. Someone who's voice I will respect. I have found one, he took some time getting convinced about the idea. I have another person in mind whom I will talk with tomorrow.
This search is driving me crazy, all I think about when I see new people is judging whether they will be good for the organization. I hope to kick start this in two weeks, 3 core members will be more than enough.
Talent is aways in demand, even in the worst of economies.