11/15/2007

Pay attention people

Got a new dohmain : silveira dawht in and wrote to a bunch of folks.
Its surprising how many people don't notice it unless I specifically point it out - nobody!

Drives me nuts.

Doesn't anyone read the from sender line any more?

The neat thing though, I paid for it by cashing paypal dollars, earned from participating in an online survey. I just luv the net.
Darn now where was that survey site again... :P

10/22/2007

Shahbaj Nursery Sector 9 - Jogging route

7/18/2007

Why is it so hard to tell you

Why is it so hard to tell you...

I see you every day and think of you constantly.
I long to tell you how much I want to be with you.

I want the distance between us to end
and to talk in terms of 'us',
rather than 'I' and 'you'.

I want most to get to know you,
to sit with you and talk at length,
about everthing that matters to you,
until I know you intimately.

Your thoughts and desires, your hopes and fears,
your most cherished dreams and fantasies.
I want to know you.

I want to walk with you and hold your hand,
through the straits of life.
I want for us to be together, sharing our joys n ecstasy.

I see you everyday and want to tell you all this,
and how my heart longs for your gentle touch.
How I want for you to undersand me like I want to
know you.

And yet I sit slouched at work
and I find you couped at yours.

I steal glances and see you smile on the phone,
and jealous thoughts fill my head.
Do thoughts of another live in your head.
That space I want for myself alone.

Oh how I long to tell you...

7/06/2007

Feeling Skittish

My new workplace calls on fresh recruits to stage a unique performance in the process of introducing themselves. And the precedent over the last three monthly meetings has been to perform a skit.

So I and my fellow new joinees had our work cut out. A skit it was!
But just one problem - none of us had ever done one before. Not a unique predicament - the preceding crop of newcomers shared the same antecedents we were told.

Intially we faced a number of issues - the biggest being what theme to choose. So I played a martialling role by coming up with one theme and aksing others to come up with their own. People were sluggish and in two sessions I wove three of my own ideas into a single thread on the suggestion of another new joinee.

Luckily we ventured to use the help of a technical writer on developing our script. Mona proved to be extremely creative and I was impressed by the speed with which she turned around the story outline that I gave her -- 8 minutes flat. Her mind must have started ticking right after I narrated the story to her in a meeting and she probably had the script in her mind's eye by the time I typed out and mailed her the outline.

So after 2-3 meetings where we where just trying to come up with a theme and shortlist from alternatives, we reached the stage where we had the basis for a good script. Thanks to Mona.

The next step was practicing the script and delivering a credible performance. But the biggest hindrance was getting the new joinees to show up at practice sessions. We had to go to each individual and check if they were going to attend, before every meeting! And this inspite of my having mailed Meeting Requests in Outlook days in advance.
Excuses, reasons, absence -- in the end, we had only five performers -- me as the Narrator, Ajith as the energetic Java programmer, Nikhil Shah from finance who played the Indian friend and doubled as one of the American colleagues, Saleem who played the counsellor at the training institute, and Mohan who played the Project Manager with great style, and also doubled as the bartender when our progammer was onsite.

We had many anxious moments through our five practice sessions (three of which were on the day of the performance)! Dialogues not in place, mixing up of the order in which to deliver lines, missed cues and low energy...

Everyone contributed though to the script and we had a pretty neat set of dialogues in the end. With me and Mona were directing the performance and energy levels in the practice sessions.

I thought I discovered a new creative side to myself - directing skits (and perhaps if I were to be more ambitious, directing plays as well ;).

What I liked about my contribution was the way in which I could coach the cast in matters of style of delivery for a particular dialogue, and the energy level required for a scene, and all the pep-talk and psycho-babble that I used to raise their energy levels.
Of course it was easier that I didn't have to act it out myself ;)

Well it was a five-scene skit that was pretty well-received in the end and felt like a job well done. :D

6/15/2007

ole dogs like new tricks

Always feels good to learn something new - even if its been done by countless others.
Today I learnt to use JNI to make native Win32 api calls and learnt to build Dlls on the way.

Also learnt that if MS provides OLE objects for an application, you can use it to manipulate its functionality from your own custom application (automate things). Eg. read and send mail in Outlook by calling OLE functionality from within your own app.

5/01/2007

Knowing me, knowing you

Watched Ashutosh Gowariker's Jodhaa-Akbar on tv today. It was beautiful, well directed and acted. Let down by film editing in parts, but worth watching.
In one scene, Jodhaa tells a remorseful Jalaaluddin he knows to conquer but not to rule. You may conquer a person's body but to rule their heart you have to peek into their soul through the window of their mind. When you understand the little thoughts, likes and dislikes that make a person who they truly are, only then do you show true respect and win their heart.
Isn't that striking in our times of instant gratification. Today we implicitly expect an instant connection between two hearts, our own and whoever else catches our fancy. We try to find out and do little things to catch that person's attention, like gifting, being cool and all that, but do we take the trouble of knowing them really well. I want to connect with you and I want it to happen now baby, otherwise you can go take a walk! Is an instant, or 15 minutes, or a few hours enough to gauge a person? I don't know, it's hard to tell.
First impressions often make or mar a relationship. And getting to know someone better can either grow your respect for them or scare you away altogether. Sometimes people project themselves as one thing & turn out very different, and you realise they are keeping secrets or being manipulative.
Either way I think true respect and love can only grow where there is trust, no secrets, and complete understanding. That's one thing I want to work on - understanding - and by that I mean respecting enough not to deride, another person's wishes and desires, however incongruent I might consider them with my own thoughts.
Understanding - such a simple word, with so much meaning. Getting to know a person's thoughts, likes and dislikes. Not shooting down their proposals because they seem so unlike what you believe in, staying open to someone else.
Maybe that's one reason I like the movie so much.