Thursday, March 30, 2006

Follow your dream...

A very nice poem which I came across..


Before you look for things to change...
look deep inside your soul.
The Lord has given you all the clues...
always follow your dream.

Inviting trouble is so easy to do...
it happens without warning.
Avoiding problems is easier said than done...
always follow your dream.

Sometimes things just turn out bad...
and you don't know where to turn.
The answer is as close as your heart...
always follow your dream.

Hope has always been the key...
it's sometimes our only hope.
When things are darkest and looking bleak...
always follow your dream.

Only the Lord has all the answers...
and he shares them with only a few.
But faith is as close as we sometimes can get...
always follow your dream.

Perhaps you feel the end is near...
and you've done everything you can.
Never give up, anything can happen...
if you always follow your dream.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Crash

I happened to watch this movie called "Crash" last week. Went with no expectations and really liked it. The only drawback is that the movie has too many characters and a whole lot of events taking place and needs to be watched with great focus to actually understand what's going on. I feel it takes a lot of guts to make such a movie 'coz not everyone can really appreciate it. The movie is about modern day racism and how people face problems related to it under different cirumstances. The whole movie is based in Los Angeles - There are so many things that happen in the movie, seem so un-related, but towards the end you realize that everyone there is connected some way or the other... everyone comes "crashing" together :-) and u can connect the dots.....thats what makes it interesting i guess!!

The movie has a very fast pace of events and ends on a positive note - sends a subtle message that finally we are all humans. People may fall prey to their anger and bad tempers but sometimes life does give a second chance. Definitely worth a watch.

Accounting - a nightmare?!!

"...Your knowledge of Accounting Concepts is not up to the level required for the core courses. It is highly recommended that you enroll for the pre-term module..."

For those of you who are wondering what this is.....I had to give a test for assessment of my accouting skills which would let me decide whether I need to enroll for the accouting pre-term course and this was the message I got at the end of the 1.5hrs test. (Not that this was ANY kind of a surprise. Clearing the test would have been one!!!!!) Thanks to a friend who advised me just a day before, NOT to guess the answers at any cost 'coz if i would get lucky with them then i wouldn't be allowed to register for the test. Phew!! This would definitely mean I would flunk the actual accouting course :)

The test result message was pretty decent considering the way I fared!! It took me exactly 15 mins to finish the test. Not that I answered a lot of questions but the major time was spent in just reading all of them !!! I would have hardly got 5 out of 30 correct!! Knowing the experiences and reactions of some of my fellow classmates I really thought I would get to see the message quoted by one of them in his blog (click here) which goes something like this - "Dude! your skills are hopeless; forget accounting, you can't even count!" :-)

Hmmm...this is just my first experience as I step into the world of management...I guess I need to be prepared to many such similar ones!!

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Happiness....

I came across an article in Times of India recently which spoke about "Liking yourself" as the first step to happiness. I gave it more thought and it really made sense to me....

You need to like yourself and try to achieve happiness from within. People can add to this but no one can initiate that feeling but you. I cannot remember telling myself even once that "I will be happy (period)". I guess happiness to us has always been conditional. It's very common of people to say things like "I will be happy,....IF i find my dream job", "I will be happy....IF i find that someone special" etc.. Why should it be based on something happening? Why cant we just be happy without waiting for things to happen? Am still pondering over these questions!!

The key to liking ourselves lies in embracing our good points and dividing our bad points into two groups - ones which we can change and the others which we cannot. For instance, If I am 5 feet tall and I don't like it, there's not much I can do about it. No miracle can probably change this. There are lots of things beyond our control. We need to just learn to accept things as they are and live with them. So I guess the best way to do this is to just change our perspective about such things and look at them from a different angle, see the positive side of it. When you start looking at things you dont like...changing what you can and accepting what you cannot - that is when miracles occur!! (ah..this really sounds so true. I should definitely try and imbibe this outlook)

"...Having yourself as a best friend has advantages. You cannot lie to yourself. You can be kind to yourself. You will not be lonely because in balance, you will not mind times when you are on your own..

"Disclaimer: Some excerpts are quoted from the article and rest of the views expressed are my own

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Being Twenty Something....

This very nice write-up below came to me via email from a friend few months back. I found this today while digging through my old email archives and I realized that every time I read this, I relate to it more and more... Very thought provoking..

"Being Twenty-Something"

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when
you stop going along with
the crowd and start realizing that there are many
things about yourself that
you didn't know and may not like. You start
feeling insecure and wonder
where you will be in a year or two, but then get
scared because you barely
know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and
that, maybe, those friends
that you thought you were so close to aren't
exactly the greatest people you
have ever met, and the people you have lost touch
with are some of the most
important ones. What you don't recognize is that
they are realizing that
too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or
insincere, but that they are as
confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close
to what you thought you
would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job
and realizing that you
are going to have to start at the bottom and that
scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what
others are doing and find
yourself judging more than usual because suddenly
you realize that you have
certain boundaries in your life and are constantly
adding things to your
list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One
minute, you are insecure and
then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the
greatest force of your life.

You feel alone and scared and confused.
Suddenly, change is the enemy
and you try and cling on to the past with dear
life, but soon realize that
the past is drifting further and further away, and
there is nothing to do
but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone
you loved could do such
damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why
you can't meet anyone decent
enough that you want to get to know better. Or
maybe you love someone but
love someone else too and cannot figure out why
you are doing this because
you know that you aren't a bad person.
One night stands and random hook ups start to look
cheap. Getting wasted and
acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.

You go through the same emotions and questions
over and over, and talk with
your friends about the same topics because you
cannot seem to make a
decision.

You worry about loans, money, the future
and making a life for
yourself... and while winning the race would be
great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading
this relates to it.
We are in our best of times and our worst of
times, trying as hard as we can
to figure this whole thing out.
First Thoughts....

I have been thinking of getting back to blogging from a really long time now and finally I managed to create a new account today [Unfortunately i could not retrieve my old blog URL or the account details :( ]. The last time I blogged was in 2004, sometime during my final sem of engineering!! Life's changed so much over these 2 years and now I am all set to get back to college and studies again. I have just got an admit into the Indian School of Business for a one year fast track MBA which starts in April. One of the main purposes of this blog is to capture my experiences and events during that 1 chronicle year of my MBA @ ISB. Hopefully it should build a repository of great memories which will let me re-live these days a few years from now, when I'm at home viewing this on my laptop !

I have read a lot of blogs of some current ISB students and a few alumni and that has given me a great insight into the exciting life at ISB...This has been one of the motivating factors for me to start blogging again after a long break!