IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth

Tags: disney, epcot, fireworks

This is the video from Magic Kingdom’s ride ‘it’s a small world’ where cultures from different countries are portrayed.

Tags: disneyworld, magic kingdom, orlando

This afternoon I had a nightmare and woke up with panic. This was because of a comment made by a friends few weeks back. [Some content removed. Yes, I am breaking bloggers promise but privacy comes first].

I always try to avoid such situation when on other side. I would never like to say anything that will make any person feel bad in any way. To be able to achieve such thing I try to keep myself away from all such situations and whenever I get angry I keep my mouth shut. I do not utter a single word about why I am angry, what caused it, what I want to do or how I feel about it. This helps me by not hurting other person. When I am calm and I have all the facts in my hand, I can handle the situation properly and take appropriate actions.

Many will disagree with my approach but I go by the philosophy as portrayed in this doha from Kabir -

Aisee Vani Boliye, Mun Ka Aapa Khoye
Apna Tan Sheetal Kare, Auran Ko Sukh Hoye

Translation– Always speak such words, without losing temper that it helps yourself in calming down and other person feels happy.

I make few but good friends and I believe in treasuring them. Their are instances like these which can cause cracks and things may not go back to normal. Thus, I always go quite when angry.

Update: I appreciate the response I got for this post. But to clarify things, this post is just about how I handle situations, not how/what happened to me. Or not about I am blaming someone.

It is my emotional nature that I am portraying and how I like to prevent such situations. Most of the people will forget such comments and that is good, but for me when I am hurt I take my time to heal.  I believe in “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness” and follow it to fullest. My aim is to make everyone happier.

Tags: anger

Fireworks at Magic Kingdom, Orlando. Beautifully lit Cinderella’s castle illuminated in varying colors and providing a perfect setup for fireworks named ‘wishes’. A lifetime experience.

Tags: cinderella, disney, fireworks

Four years back I bought a Sony Ericsson w700i and along with that I adopted a habit that changed a lot of things in my life. That habit is listening to podcasts and I started with the best tech podcast of all time – This Week in Tech (TWiT) by Leo Laporte. I got hooked to it so much that these days I listen to at least 2 hours of audio, either in form of podcast or audio books. Listening to podcasts have not only helped me gain knowledge but helps me while running on treadmill or otherwise, makes me walk to and fro college rather than taking bus, and provides sufficient humor and keeps up to date with world.

This year I got addicted to a new tech podcast – Buzz Out Loud (BOL) and listened to all 1,100 episodes. The combination of BOL on weekdays and TWiT on weekends completes the cycle. And its not just tech news but expert analysis helps one achieve a new perspective of things. Complex topics like net neutrality, Google book lawsuit, Iran protests, etc were talked at length and helped me better understand it from different perspectives.

Here is a list of top 5 podcasts

1. TWiT – This Week in Tech is the best podcast ever. Leo Laporte with along his wide range of guests dissects every issue as well as provide a good deal of ‘geek humor’.
2. BOL – Buzz Out Loud  provides daily analysis of news. Hosts Tom Merritt and Jason Howell along with panel of Molly Wood, Natali Del Conte, Brian Tsong and others make this one of the top podcasts.
3. This Week in Google – Another one from Leo’s empire. Expert hosts Gina Trapani, and Jeff Jarvis help analyze Google news/tools/services etc along with expert guests. Must listen for all Google lovers.
4. GDGT – Two best experts on gadgets Ryan Block and Peter Rojas talk about gadgets and much more. Their analysis and review is unmatched. Must listen for gadget lovers.
5. This Week in Photography – One more from Leo’s empire, as name suggests it is a podcast from photographers. It provides all the information that one needs for photography.

Tags: podcast

2009 has been a wonderful year, completing two semesters (MBA Friends, Fall 2009), internship (Baroda et al), a trip to Florida(Disney) and Wisconsin (Midwest), and nice vacation at home. As from links above you can see all have been blogged. Now time for promises I made last year and how did it go?

• Take YAP to newer level and at least have 30 episodes in 2009: This was a disaster. I apologize to all YAP listeners that I was not able to keep the promise. I would not give any excuses or make any promises in this field. I am working on something and when it is time, I will release it out.
• Start running, I don’t want to be a marathon runner but at least want to do 5 KM in a stretch. This goal was achieved on April 16, 2009 when I ran the 3.2 mile Run for Remembrance at Virginia Tech. I was helped by some friends in inspiration to make myself stretch for this kind of run, otherwise it used to be longer but short bursts with walking breaks.
• Learn a lot about photography: This also worked out well, this has been the year with most learning in field of photography. Currently I am fairly confident in shooting sports, nature and can handle wide variety of cameras to shoot specific stuff. Still a long way to go but I am happy with this start. Mostly I shot Basketball, Volleyball and Football this season and all galleries can be found here.
• Reduce weight, at least by 4 kg: This seemed like a hard goal, but ‘running’ and ‘running for photography’ helped a lot. In fact I was able to double the figure and lost 8+ kg. I feel really good about it now and don’t want to push it forward but maintain the same.
• …and learn, learn, learn…. : I learned a lot this year especially in field of management, made a lot of plans and tried to keep my learning to practical purposes. But this is a continuous effort, I should not be satisfied ever and am not. This would be my primary goal for 2010 too.

What next: I will let this picture talk -

This is not a randomly selected goal but chosen from a set of goals. I believe this is one area where I need to improve. I have noticed that I am patient to most of the people, but when it comes to someone close I am not that tolerant. I get irritated by small issues, my expectations are high and it leads to friction. So I am going to learn to be better friend. 

Tags: 2009

Watched Top Gear Special episode where the team goes to South America for another set of adventures. 

Challenge – Crossing 1,000 miles of rain forest, desert and active volcano in a four wheel drive car bought under $3,500

Here are the reasons why everyone should watch this (unordered)-

• If you love adventure movies like Indiana Jones you will love this episode because the trio travels through rain forests of Bolivia in similar conditions. Not just the trees but they fight against insects, snakes etc
• If you want to learn how to cross a river in car and what modifications should be made with simple products. Or if you are stuck in a gully and needs to know how to build a bridge across it.
• If you like to experience how it feels to drive on the edge. I mean literally on the edge, trio drives on Yungas Road popularly known as Death Road.  Not just the normal adventure but with overtaking, falling in ditch and one car without headlights at night. During one scene during that course that will drive your anticipation level to height that has never been attained before.
• Ever experienced the active volcano. If your answer is no, then must watch. It shows how much impact it has on humans as well as cars, how to survive and how trio handled the pressure at 17,200 feet.
• Ever experienced how to drive down 2,000 feet dune with more than 60 gradient. Trio tries that you to the reach the beautiful Pacific which was their goal.

These were the additional reasons over the usual Top Gear features of being petrol head, crazy, comical, “helping”, having pranks, visiting picturesque places, and sometimes reviewing cars. Its one brilliant episode that one must watch, you don’t have to like cars or car shows if you appreciate humor and nature this would be a great experience.

I just wonder how BBC makes this most downloaded TV show, unarguably the best TV show ever, better week after week.  

After you have seen the episode you can check the show notes or as they like to call it Big, Fat Christmas Treat.

Tags: top gear

Tags: comic, SOA

Disclaimer: This post is just about observations, not to judge any person, place or country. Its just my curious nature that is making me write the post, no other intention. These are personal observations, your experience may vary.

When I moved to US for my MBA, I could feel a lot of difference in every way I could think of. I saw a lot of improvement over what I have seen back in India and  few times other way around too, but this post is not about those. Its about small observations that I found interesting, human behaviors mostly from cultural perspective.

Biggest difference was regarding ‘assignments’. The emphasis given on assignments was overwhelming, in India this kind of emphasis is given on exams only.  Practical nature of assignments combined with team work helps you to learn a lot and reduce pressure from exams. May be practical nature of MBA has a part to play in it. This should be part of ‘education system analysis’ post that I would be publishing soon. Here my point was to drive towards issue of plagiarism. In most of Indian colleges plagiarism is not as strictly monitored as it is in US because of that some Indian students take time to understand the implications. Many learn in first month and few people take few semesters to get used to this idea. This leads to a lot of differences while working in teams and lead to rework.

Second difference I found was in newspapers. As I love reading I would go to library and check newspapers, the famous ones that I had only heard about and seen only electronic versions. It was a surprise for me that I did not find much international news. Many a times I noticed 8 page newspaper with 5 pages of sports and 1/4 page of international news. But thankfully in today’s Internet world I get all the news I wanted.

Socializing was another big difference. Classmates usually know about each other, form friends circles before or after class. Here I noticed that very less communication takes place after class, most of socialization happen in bar over drinks. For a teetotaler like me it was hard to adjust to but other form of socializing takes place at sports events. Here my knowledge and appreciation of sports came in handy.

Then there are smaller differences. For example a small help such as sharing book for few hours is considered ‘nothing’ in India, but I learned here its a ‘favor’. Now this changes a lot of things for me, even when it was considered ‘nothing’, I would ask for help rarely but when a big word like ‘favor’ is put in front of it, this shuts down the path for me to ask for any help.

Another example would be the way people say NO. In India we are not used to here ‘no’ if we ask for help, the other person will say ‘no’ in different way, the British way. I remember once I asked a friend for something small and when I got a blunt ‘no’ it came as shock to me. On the other hand Indian ‘Yes’ is different too. I learned this while working with US clients. Indian ‘yes’ refers to ‘honest effort in completing task’ not a commitment to complete.

Similarly, I do not understand the difference between definition of ‘inconvenience’ in these two countries – In India coming 10 minutes late is not inconvenience while here it is, walking 200 feet extra has different meaning too, privacy level in two countries vary tremendously. In India we rarely address people (other than friends and in Infy) by their first name where here it is considered must.

There are a lot of small observation that I have experienced and learned a lot from it. Always trying to gather best of both worlds and that’s why I am here (one of the many reasons). No book or any amount of reading would give me such a rich experience. In this globalized economy this kind of understanding is must for success.

Hofstede quotes – “Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster”. I agree with him completely, few times I had disagreement with a friend over small things because of these differences. But this is the way to learn and I am glad I am here.

Tags: india, US