Thursday, April 30, 2009

Just not my day…

The alarm in my cell phone rang and I woke up at 5am (I work in morning shift, why else would I wake up in the middle of the night?) and I tried to stop it from ringing because my roomies were sleeping in the same room and I didn’t want to wake anyone else up (I am an absolute angel, aren’t I?). As I reached for my cell phone in the dark (yeah, my eyes were unwilling to open up, yet) it accidentally fell down from the bed and I had to search for it (it was hard enough to open my eyes, leave alone making it adjust to the darkness of the room) – and found that it was lying in three parts – the battery had come out and I had to put it back into the phone and switch it on to see what time it was and yeah, the whole process took a good 5 minutes and I had to hurry.

After brushing (no, don’t raise your eyebrows at this) I went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and found that our refrigerator had gone into “defrost” mode sometime during the night and there was a pond of water in the middle of the kitchen and yeah, I stepped on it and almost fell.

I came into office on time (thanks to an amazing MTC bus driver) and logged in to see that I had a very important task to be completed. And I had little doubts about proceeding with it. I called up the person-who-knows-everything to get them clarified. The person-who-knows-everything started blasting me for not having practiced it beforehand. I didn’t speak a word (after being in the project for over 3 months, I have learnt to be passive to the “archanai” I get from people-who-know-everything) However, the task was completed successfully, but I have my regrets – it is not just about today, not just about this task or even this job.

Is it really worth it to be in a job that is not very motivating, not something you want to do with your life and something you are stuck on to only for the money it gives? Here I am working in a job I despise, skipping my breakfast to get the task done (I never skip breakfast otherwise, I am a health freak! Trust me!!!), trying to be as sincere to my work as possible and someone shouting at me over no mistake of mine??? What the hell…

P.S.: I don’t care!!!

Friday, April 17, 2009

Nonstop nonsense (as always...)

These are some of the random thoughts/incidents that have happened over the last week.

1. I was traveling by Cheran Express from Chennai to Coimbatore on April 9th night for a 5 day weekend which included Vishu. I was allotted side lower berth (a berth which I hate – I mean, I always hate lower berths, I prefer sleeping up high above the rest) and the comfort-seeking me approached the guy who had that upper berth and asked him if he could switch his upper berth for my lower one and he readily accepted (he was a young chap and could have easily climbed up there). I smelled something fishy right then. But then I said to myself, “Ha, I’ve got the berth I wanted and nothing else matters.” Later, I took my laptop bag, my handbag and another one of my travel bags to the upper berth and lied down and I really smelled something fishy (I mean, in the literal sense!). I turned around and saw a bunch of 3 (rotten… yuck) bananas which had become a jam and I almost puked because of the smell. (Photo of the rotten banana to be uploaded soon). I asked the TTR to get it cleaned (no, I didn’t shout like Anniyan Ambi to call him); but he said it was highly impossible because the train is already moving and that the next station would come only at 11:30 in the night and that the train would stop there for a mere two minutes! Poor me!!! Then I climbed down and had to share a side lower berth (like in the case of RAC tickets with one of my oh-so-gracious friends till we reached Salem… phew!!!). It is high time Indian Railways began keeping their trains clean!
2. One of my best friends did NOT wish me on my birthday because his girlfriend doesn’t like him talking to me. Ufff…. What is with these people??? That is why I said special people have special rules!!!
3. I met up with a schoolmate of mine when I was at Coimbatore. Now, this guy is with the Air Force and was telling us stories of how life there is and what his role is and how he is expecting a transfer to Leh (yeah, the one with the snow-capped mountains at the background) and how much politics happens in there. As fascinating as it was, I felt I could never imagine being a defense personnel (yeah, I know I wouldn’t even pass the physical test, but hey, just in case…) – I silently thanked God for making me smart enough (??!!?) to pass engineering and be in a job that is safe (no, am not talking about job security – from that perspective, his job is more secure than mine, it being with the Govt. of India; I am talking about the safety of our lives)
4. I finished reading the book “PS, I love you” by Cecile Ahern and yeah, I cried (think all you want, I am emotional), although certain conversations in the book sounded fake. But otherwise it was a nice read and I finished the book in a day. It made me feel great because I had already reached a conclusion that my reading speed is not even half of what it was when I was back at college and now “I am back!!!”
5. For some people nice things just happen and for some (unlucky ones like me) things don’t seem to happen no matter how hard we try. Why this partiality? Or is this all a part of Chaos Theory (in the sense that someone else screwed something somewhere some time back and we are paying the price for that) or Karma (our past actions having a say on our future). Whatever it is, I don’t think I have done anything good ever (that explains why my appraisals have been so bad forever); but hey I am proud of myself and I think I am the best and ultimately that is what matters, isn’t it?
6. Well, there was more to write that I can’t seem to remember (old age brings with it a bad package that includes loss of memory; dude, I am 23!!!). Also, there is a limit to boring my readers and I know where to draw the line!!! Hee hee…

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Birthday blues!

I, for one, have had a lot of time to kill today - a lot of friends called up and wished, team mates had bought a cake and made me cut it (although they couldn't make me eat it - I told 'em I was on a diet!; yes, you could go ahead and kill me for that!) and we took pics (which I shall upload shortly) and yeah, am now all set to go to the beach with a bunch of friends - more pics, I guess! So all in all, a pretty good birthday so far generally - but it is the worst birthday ever for me.

And here is why... Ever since I was a small girl, my mom and dad always made me feel like a princess (not just on my birthday); more so if it was my special day. I was their first daughter - a talkative, little, adorable thing that had made their life a heaven (until I started talking too much too early!) So now that I am living far away from my mom and sister and even farther away from my dad, I am feeling lonely (although I have awesome roomies and colleagues) and left out. It just didn't feel like it was my birthday...

But yeah, I guess I have to learn to live with it. I mean, a birthday is the day when the person needs maximum attention (I am an attention-seeker even otherwise) because he/she already worried about having to write age := age+1 in their algorithms and about the huge hole the birthday treat is gonna leave in their pockets. I wanna be happy - I haven't even treated my friends yet - but am not.

Guess it is the age factor!

As an update to the post(written after 2 days, in response to one of the comments), I'd like to mention here that I did get a few presents and a few hugs later in the day. My best friend actually took me to FabIndia and bought me an awesome dress! So yeah, kinda fighting on against the blues, I should say!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

One lousy programmer!!!

He who programmed us is having fun from above us. We are nothing but machines; pre-programmed (God is not a great programmer; all His programs have bugs!), helpless and vulnerable to attacks that other programs may cause us. And the programmer instead of working on fixing the bugs just sits up there and keeps writing new programs! I am alarmed to know that is no sign of User Acceptance Testing whatsoever.

The program environment is mind-boggling enough – so many interdependent programs, so many joins, so many mutually exclusive sets, so many undeclared variables, dangling pointers (enough, that is all the technical terms that I know!!!)

Whoever His PM is!!!

After reading about my analytical mind, am sure most of you think I am one of His programs, which was intended to be sent to the Recycle Bin/Enhancement phase, but by mistake was delivered to the world.

This post re-emphasizes the same thing – with an illustration of the bug. All of you who read about the complex flowcharts that my mind draws when faced with any kind of situation, here is something that tells you how much I hate being unprepared. To me all the situations that could happen should be prepared for well in advance. I noticed how I have reached the heights of this “being organized” thing.

I can’t ever put my mp3 player/mobile/winamp in ‘Shuffle’ mode. I HAVE to know what songs are going to be played and in what order. I can’t take it if a song that I don’t want to hear is playing – even if it is just going to be for 30 seconds before I change the song.

I also noticed that I always keep my mobile and my hair band above my head before sleeping. I can’t take it if I don’t find them in their respective places in the morning.

My folders in the PC at work should always be arranged in one particular manner. If I don’t find a file in its place, I get so very angry.

My clothes should always be arranged in a particular manner in my cupboard. Casuals on the left, skirts near them, salwars/chudidhars in one pile and stuff like that… If something is misplaced, I panic (yeah, I don’t just get angry, I panic)

Finally, now you tell me, why has He programmed me this way? Do any of you have such weird habits? Just curious to know if it just me or if I have company!!!