where will i be without you? (translated from the songs playing on my laptop right now)
which case for tomorrow? rather how many cases for tomorrow?
how do i change the currency setting in MsExcel to reflect international denomination instead of national denomination?
how many internship applications did you make? God will I get calls?
how many of my friends are getting married this yr? When's mom gonna be back from the family weddings i am missing? and what about me?
as my capital markets prof would ask: "WHEN THE YIELD GOES UP, THE PRICES GO????? if you were getting tomatoes for 180 versus 200, which ones would you buy?" and so on. i should have asked him, "will i get a C?"
my company logo used to say: "consulting. technology. outsourcing." my life currently says: "consulting?banking?industry?"
i would be on a call with mom and all of a sudden she would ask me, "are you asleep? did you eat yet?" all are a luxury now. sleep, food, and calls with mom.
when will i see my nephew (i want her to be a niece)
and now for the compounding confounding one; what is my passion? salsa? (maybe i should think more seriously about the business plan with Sam) does problem-solving inspire me? or is it analytical skills? or is it people and resources? how much salary do i want? where do i want to work? where do i see myself 5 years from now?
who wants to be a millionaire? i can give you a million thanks if you answer any of the above :)
and now this is for you guys: what is doing good doing well?
watch out for the next post.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
learning from people
its amazing how you start looking up to people. some of them just click, from the first interaction onwards, some others grow on you. i have found one and as my teammate Sara says, "when i grow up, I want to be like him".
Fernando Penalva, our accounting professor is this person. you will say, an accounting prof? this is crazy! i would have thought the same, like i did when i got similar reviews from seniors. i mean why would they be in LOVE with him?? wasnt it one of the least exciting subjects? and then suddenly i realized i was a part of this craze.
the story begins like this. once upon a time, in a far-away land, i received an email from my to-be accounting professor. 'this is the exercise, if you can't finish it, sign up for this online course, if you are not good at it, join the pre-course class.' i thought aah, i am not worried about that! the quiz seems doable with a peek at the answers, i mean i can match up my answers with that for sure! then the seriousness grew, we had to buy this book costing 140 euros. what!!?! why?? but I not even going to do any accounting after this program.. but almost everyone succumbed to the pressure. we met all the pre-requisites and huffed-puffed our way to pre-class.
who is this? this frail-sweet-looking-child-like person, was he the one sending out all those instructions? can't be! and then he started teaching. i am getting poetic now, but this is how it is. he teaches you as if you were the naivest student, and having the unfailing dedication of learing accounting principles. and should you feel sleepy in class, he sprinkles you with his simple humour. my memory of his classes are an image of a bright classroom, with the sun shining in through the window against a cool blue sky and autumn leaves whistling in the distance. his words like the cool wind, and the writing on the black-board like the most soothing piece of art. now you see, how crazy it gets?
he is probably the most quoted person on our facebook profiles. i will take the liberty of posting a few here:
"This is my home telephone number. Please avoid calling me in the middle of the night, but if you do call me in a panic situation, I will be nice." (this is not sarcastic. he is the only professor so far to have given us a contact number.)
"Bonds are like marriages. You get what you get." (Bonds here mean debt instruments issued by governments with fixed terms for returns)
"I have hired them because they are professional killers. they will break your neck. they have done that before." (poor invigilators in our mid-term exams, they didnt know this was coming!)
"You can use anything you want to mark your answers. Pen, pencil, crayons." (I told you we were like children for him)
"Tangible assets, if they fall on you, you will die" (I will never ever forget types of assets, you can wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me)
"What do you need to solve this problem? Apart from an accountant i.e.?" (simple, isnt it!)
"Dont get discouraged, it is not the end of the world even if you have secured the lowest grade in mid-term. My consideration and respect for you is even higher than before the exam." (aah wish this was a movie and i could weep with happiness in the dark ambience!)
and the most famous one, the one that made me fall in love with him. but before the quote, let me give you some background. as per the course methodology, we are supposed to read the concept on our own, solve the exercise and then in class the next day, he explains the whole thing to us. some students complained that with all the other workload, this was taking a lot of time. This feedback reached him through our class administrator, and in response he wrote us two mails on friday night, as late as midnight.. He addressed us as "beloved class" (sigh of happiness!!) and went on to reaffirm us to believe in the system and that it would all be fine. He gave us short-cuts to reduce the time taken, and signed-off saying:
"I feel your pain"
I can't say any more. May God bless.
Fernando Penalva, our accounting professor is this person. you will say, an accounting prof? this is crazy! i would have thought the same, like i did when i got similar reviews from seniors. i mean why would they be in LOVE with him?? wasnt it one of the least exciting subjects? and then suddenly i realized i was a part of this craze.
the story begins like this. once upon a time, in a far-away land, i received an email from my to-be accounting professor. 'this is the exercise, if you can't finish it, sign up for this online course, if you are not good at it, join the pre-course class.' i thought aah, i am not worried about that! the quiz seems doable with a peek at the answers, i mean i can match up my answers with that for sure! then the seriousness grew, we had to buy this book costing 140 euros. what!!?! why?? but I not even going to do any accounting after this program.. but almost everyone succumbed to the pressure. we met all the pre-requisites and huffed-puffed our way to pre-class.
who is this? this frail-sweet-looking-child-like person, was he the one sending out all those instructions? can't be! and then he started teaching. i am getting poetic now, but this is how it is. he teaches you as if you were the naivest student, and having the unfailing dedication of learing accounting principles. and should you feel sleepy in class, he sprinkles you with his simple humour. my memory of his classes are an image of a bright classroom, with the sun shining in through the window against a cool blue sky and autumn leaves whistling in the distance. his words like the cool wind, and the writing on the black-board like the most soothing piece of art. now you see, how crazy it gets?
he is probably the most quoted person on our facebook profiles. i will take the liberty of posting a few here:
"This is my home telephone number. Please avoid calling me in the middle of the night, but if you do call me in a panic situation, I will be nice." (this is not sarcastic. he is the only professor so far to have given us a contact number.)
"Bonds are like marriages. You get what you get." (Bonds here mean debt instruments issued by governments with fixed terms for returns)
"I have hired them because they are professional killers. they will break your neck. they have done that before." (poor invigilators in our mid-term exams, they didnt know this was coming!)
"You can use anything you want to mark your answers. Pen, pencil, crayons." (I told you we were like children for him)
"Tangible assets, if they fall on you, you will die" (I will never ever forget types of assets, you can wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me)
"What do you need to solve this problem? Apart from an accountant i.e.?" (simple, isnt it!)
"Dont get discouraged, it is not the end of the world even if you have secured the lowest grade in mid-term. My consideration and respect for you is even higher than before the exam." (aah wish this was a movie and i could weep with happiness in the dark ambience!)
and the most famous one, the one that made me fall in love with him. but before the quote, let me give you some background. as per the course methodology, we are supposed to read the concept on our own, solve the exercise and then in class the next day, he explains the whole thing to us. some students complained that with all the other workload, this was taking a lot of time. This feedback reached him through our class administrator, and in response he wrote us two mails on friday night, as late as midnight.. He addressed us as "beloved class" (sigh of happiness!!) and went on to reaffirm us to believe in the system and that it would all be fine. He gave us short-cuts to reduce the time taken, and signed-off saying:
"I feel your pain"
I can't say any more. May God bless.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Supervivientes!
thats the word for "Survivors:" in spanish..
I survived the mid-terms even with a couple of blows. I can say this today, for it took me time and emergency control measures. It came as a shock to me, I had tried so hard and gotten so far, in the end it didnt even matter.. not really, I was mistaken for it does matter. so what if your accuracy level is low, so what if your grade puts you way below your expectations; in the end what matters is what you retain in your head. the energy, in terms of time, effort and sincerity, nothing goes waste. even the law of thermodynamics proves that.
you take the support of experiences to pull you out of the rut. and what better experience than that of Nando Parrado. We had Nando speak to us live in our school on the day of the last mid-term, of how way back in the 1970's he and a bunch of rugby teammates survived a place crash, lost his mother and sister, lived on the andes n the most dire circumstances of lack of food, water, warm clothes, survived an avalanche, and then walked 140 kms of the Andes to reach civilization and be rescued. lessons learnt from him, no one can beat luck. why did he have to sit in the seat beyond which the plane broke into two during the crash , why did the remaining part of the plane have a soft landing, why did the avalanche bury them just well enough to insulate them from a terible blizzard, why oh why.. the list is endless. next lesson, life goes on and in the process eveyone learns to survive. the survivors of the plane crash learnt to live in the Andes in practically inhabitable circumstances for 2.5 months, in the peak of winter. while at the same time, their families mourned them, missed them and learnt to live without them. there is nothing in this world that you can't do, nothing that can defeat you but yourself. in Nando's words, it was an interesting and humbling expereince.
ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no river wide enough..
then we went to costa brava to revitalize ourselves from the rust of the academia.. and wat better way than to drive, cook, drink, ramble, sing and dance! complete in an antique wooden mediterranean architecture setting, the picture of grandma's fireplace, woods straight out of robert frost's poems, plantations of apples, olives, grapes, and the snow capped pyrenees winking at you from the horizon.. and even then if you felt rusty, you figured out ways to pull yourself upto speed. drink lots of water, listen to music, dance your heart out, cook, read, eat and talk to people. take advice, feel bad and introspect. step by step the rosy tint reappears on your glasses. it has on mine.
i have miles to go before i sleep, and have promises to keep, but I have realised i will survive and as i go along the road, I will find the key.
I survived the mid-terms even with a couple of blows. I can say this today, for it took me time and emergency control measures. It came as a shock to me, I had tried so hard and gotten so far, in the end it didnt even matter.. not really, I was mistaken for it does matter. so what if your accuracy level is low, so what if your grade puts you way below your expectations; in the end what matters is what you retain in your head. the energy, in terms of time, effort and sincerity, nothing goes waste. even the law of thermodynamics proves that.
you take the support of experiences to pull you out of the rut. and what better experience than that of Nando Parrado. We had Nando speak to us live in our school on the day of the last mid-term, of how way back in the 1970's he and a bunch of rugby teammates survived a place crash, lost his mother and sister, lived on the andes n the most dire circumstances of lack of food, water, warm clothes, survived an avalanche, and then walked 140 kms of the Andes to reach civilization and be rescued. lessons learnt from him, no one can beat luck. why did he have to sit in the seat beyond which the plane broke into two during the crash , why did the remaining part of the plane have a soft landing, why did the avalanche bury them just well enough to insulate them from a terible blizzard, why oh why.. the list is endless. next lesson, life goes on and in the process eveyone learns to survive. the survivors of the plane crash learnt to live in the Andes in practically inhabitable circumstances for 2.5 months, in the peak of winter. while at the same time, their families mourned them, missed them and learnt to live without them. there is nothing in this world that you can't do, nothing that can defeat you but yourself. in Nando's words, it was an interesting and humbling expereince.
ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no river wide enough..
then we went to costa brava to revitalize ourselves from the rust of the academia.. and wat better way than to drive, cook, drink, ramble, sing and dance! complete in an antique wooden mediterranean architecture setting, the picture of grandma's fireplace, woods straight out of robert frost's poems, plantations of apples, olives, grapes, and the snow capped pyrenees winking at you from the horizon.. and even then if you felt rusty, you figured out ways to pull yourself upto speed. drink lots of water, listen to music, dance your heart out, cook, read, eat and talk to people. take advice, feel bad and introspect. step by step the rosy tint reappears on your glasses. it has on mine.
i have miles to go before i sleep, and have promises to keep, but I have realised i will survive and as i go along the road, I will find the key.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
finding fault within yourself
prelude: my blogposts are getting more serious and at the same time the frequency is reducing. it is only because, i assure you with all sincerity, my thinking speed has reduced and time has expanded!!!
it was a weird coincidence. on two consecutive days in two different courses, the professor reiterated the importance of being able to find your own fault in any altercation. one spoke in leadership terms, about the range of an individual's tendency to decline or accept a proposition. the other explained it in terms of probability, how intuitive deciphering can lead to ignoring one's own involvement and judging only the other person. i dont believe in coincidences, i believe they happen with a purpose, and in order to give you the next clue for this universal treasure hunt of life, when the force finds you stuck at another crossroad. so, on a personal note this could not be more meaningful.
i was at crossroads and needed a clue to pull myself out. this clue helped me come out of deep guilt pangs. not only i realised what i was doing, but also as soon as i realised it, i had the solution in front of me. as if an x-ray report flashed in front of me and then a doctor's prescription in some bad handwriting. wait, it gets even better. if the guilt was tough enough, the confession was tougher. and the toughest was the wait for retribution. i cannot harp enough about the tight timelines we live in today, each one of us, that make life complicated enough without factoring the softer personal issues. but i have come out wiser from facing and dealing with this situation. it is fairly early in this new life that I am embarking upon, and the sooner the lesson learnt, the better it is. not only did i get the timely hint to deal with this, i also had the patience to wait for the reaction, and the sense to understand the gift i have and how i am the one who has to nurture it. forever.
i have been talking and thinking and talking over this for the past few days. with the accounting and leadership stuff going on in my lower brain. i dont know if all of this is a big justification, and maybe more than necessary. but i told you that my thinking has got slower and time has expanded, so this is all straight from the heart.
if you have understood not a single word of the above, well maybe you were not supposed to. take the clue ;) and if you have, then well, I am glad.
it was a weird coincidence. on two consecutive days in two different courses, the professor reiterated the importance of being able to find your own fault in any altercation. one spoke in leadership terms, about the range of an individual's tendency to decline or accept a proposition. the other explained it in terms of probability, how intuitive deciphering can lead to ignoring one's own involvement and judging only the other person. i dont believe in coincidences, i believe they happen with a purpose, and in order to give you the next clue for this universal treasure hunt of life, when the force finds you stuck at another crossroad. so, on a personal note this could not be more meaningful.
i was at crossroads and needed a clue to pull myself out. this clue helped me come out of deep guilt pangs. not only i realised what i was doing, but also as soon as i realised it, i had the solution in front of me. as if an x-ray report flashed in front of me and then a doctor's prescription in some bad handwriting. wait, it gets even better. if the guilt was tough enough, the confession was tougher. and the toughest was the wait for retribution. i cannot harp enough about the tight timelines we live in today, each one of us, that make life complicated enough without factoring the softer personal issues. but i have come out wiser from facing and dealing with this situation. it is fairly early in this new life that I am embarking upon, and the sooner the lesson learnt, the better it is. not only did i get the timely hint to deal with this, i also had the patience to wait for the reaction, and the sense to understand the gift i have and how i am the one who has to nurture it. forever.
i have been talking and thinking and talking over this for the past few days. with the accounting and leadership stuff going on in my lower brain. i dont know if all of this is a big justification, and maybe more than necessary. but i told you that my thinking has got slower and time has expanded, so this is all straight from the heart.
if you have understood not a single word of the above, well maybe you were not supposed to. take the clue ;) and if you have, then well, I am glad.
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