Bill Gates' 11 Rules of Life

Wonderful speech of a genius, Mr Bill Gates to high school students. He talks about the 11 rules that will not be taught in school.The excerpt is as below:

Rule 1: Life is not fair -- get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for
burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

I just love this and a copy of this hangs in my cube as well.Thanks to my friend who took the pain of forwarding the mail to me. Wanted to share this with you guys. enjoy some more reading stuff.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

Quite an interesting title for a blog, isn't it? The credit should go to my mentor who forwarded me a mail to go through the video with the title 'What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20' in the net.

This is an interesting lecture by Tina Seelig in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. The title it self is so catchy that it almost instantly asked me to play the video. Thanks to him for forwarding, it was a very good learning and at the same time made me think, if i lost something in my life just because I did not know some points, when I was 20. Yes I did loose my good 5 years, not entirely though.

These five years have changed me to a person who is mature but I think I could have made more out of it IF..... I know, these ifs and buts don't make sense now. Its not too late either.

The striking point in the lecture was 'Importance of networking'. I think I was almost illiterate in this sense. I was person who was of the thought that, life is all about myself and most importantly the fact that I liked isolation ;almost made me a person to be a very very very small LAN, can say almost no connections(other than family ).

I realise the importance now and feel that the world is essentially small and you never know when u need some one. Its not in the career perspective but even for the development of one self you need people, I remember the line form my school text book 'Man is a social Animal'.

Yeah, I know that it will take some time for me to see the world in this new perspective.

The point in lecture which brought the smile on my lips was the one with the title 'Be Fabulous'. Wow the title tells it all and most importantly never miss an opportunity to be fabulous. So true.

'Career Advice: Don't Wait to be Anointed' was something which one needs to have in his/her attitude. And I think If we develop this attitude there will not be any cribs, disappointments or demotivations in this software world.

The only point I don't agree to her is 'The harder you work the luckier you get". Somehow I am not in terms with this line. I do believe in miracles, so you never know when I would say the above point is true.

Do try to spend some time watching, 'http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1466'

Happy reading!!

I miss the Solitude

I really miss the solitude i used to get in my previous job. The solitude which gave me time to know myself.

There were some great places which had become part of my life. They gave me the time to reunite with myself. When I say, i was alone. It was not because the others threw me to it, but something which i wanted. I made sure that everyday of mine will have few minutes of solitude in any of these places- Near the pool, Near the fish pond or outside building 26.

When I was there, it was just me and me. There was no one to ask me why i sat there or no one to disturb me. It was a feeling of being alone in a crowd with a difference that is with no noise.

Now in this new place I miss these places. I need to reinvent and get me a place which will bring back me in myself.

As they say : "Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Everyone has times when they are alone through circumstances or choice. Being alone can be experienced as positive, pleasurable, and emotionally refreshing if it is under the individuals control. Solitude is the state of being alone and secluded from other people, and often implies having made a conscious choice to be alone. Loneliness is therefore unwilling solitude."

I am now craving for it.

When good becomes bad!!!

Sometimes a questing lingers in my mind, do we have something called Good and Bad in this world. Can we really differentiate every entity in this world into 2 categories ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’. Not possible. Just for the reason that each one of us are unique, something which seems good for me might not be good for the other person.

Last week, I was all ecstatic and was in good spirit through out the day. I could see that one of my acquaintance is jealous and the behaviour of hers towards me was not good. But I don’t know why, I never took that to heart and even thought that ‘She is not in a good mood’. I am less forgiving usually.

But last Monday, my mood was off and everything around me seemed like conspiring against me. A joke of my friend, which I usually enjoy;annoyed me so much that I just back fired. And all sorts of thoughts flooded; all of a sudden I felt that that friendof mine is no good and I believed her blindly all these days.

Deciding good or bad is just our state of mind. We are happy, the world seems happy and we are sad, everything else is bad.

Freedom or Independence

We had a essay competition in our company on Independence day's occasion. I had the least interest to go but went because of sowmya, my friend. Over there the essay requirements were as below:

Topic: freedom or independence
Criteria: It shd not be more than 61 words and not less than 50 words..
Time duration : 20 mins.

Oops, the 61 words condition was difficult to handle. I thought I will write it like a poem and it was something like this:

Out of mom's womb!!
Am happy, am Free!
But they aren't!!!
Why,
I am a GIRL!!!!

They try to kill , Mom cries,
Protests and runs...

It is dark,
mom walks with me.
They push, we fall.
Comes savior, but killed!!
Police laugh,
The Giants follow !!!

We run,
For the independence,
The tears fall from sky asking,
'Where is FREEDOM?"
still running.................



Do we have the freedom????

Guess what I got the first prize but the question still lingers!!!!!!!!

Life in INFY

Hmm.. Never did I think that the company I dreamt of getting into, would move out of my career so soon.

Yeah.. I remember the day, I was walking on the pavement, on the way to my college in 3rd semester, I saw a bus with a blue board and 'Infosys' written on it. I just prayed, let me get into this God. And I think there was tataastu from him so I got through the interview. It was my first and the last interview in last 3 years. I did not know what advantages i would get after joining but just that I wanted to get in. I loved the spirit of NRN and the stories of sudha murthy.

After I got my offer letter, i left to my home town did not turn my face to Bangalore till September 19th 2005, my first day in Infy. We came to the Mysore campus and the was just awed by the rooms and the campus. Made some good friends and started off with the software which I was very weak at. Not that I was from E&C background but I hated 'C' and myself and the computer were not great friends as well.

On the first day we had our soft skills training and the Dos and Don'ts in and outside the campus. The speakers were really good. The training program in Infy is really commendable.I owe my skills to this training.

We had a very strenuous generic training and the stream trainings. I think the best chapter of my life would be life in Mysore campus.
Basically I love reading and Infy had a huge library and there were no time restrictions. I used to study till 1.00-2.00 P.M in night and come back to the room. It was fun and fun. Nerdy ? ;)

I could see people studying late nights, the people who never opened their books in colleges were quite different over here. Infy changed them.

The trainings were over and I headed to Infy Bangalore, my first day being of 2nd Feb-2006. I had dreams backed by my achievements. When I joined Infy I had my own ideas and i don think blog is right place to share them. I tried every ounce to go near the dream. I was the topper in generic training and was even awarded the 'Best Trainee' award. And so i had very high expectations when i came to Bangalore. Ironically I could not fulfil many even after my hard work.As Ghalib says 'bahut nikle armaan mere, kambhakt jo bhi nikle kam nikle' Never mind, Life is a mix of fate and hard work and and I will keep trying.

Initially at the start I was frustrated with no work and i did create some big problems. yeah i laugh at myself now when i look back. But that was my urge to learn and grow!!

Got some good projects and my manger did help me out to grow, he gave me certain things to do that made me learn and know new aspects. New challenges came and went, I think i gave my 100% to them. But yes i grew technically but not in any other aspect. That frustrated me. It was not the fault of anyone but still my growth was hindered.

My visa did not go through twice and my dreams of on site gradually moved away from reality and since I had to move on in life. I decided to quit. Here I am writing this blog sitting in new company. Will write about my last day in Infy in the next post!!

Search Algorithm

I was reading the online book 'What IF' by Steve.L.Robbins, which is the collection of stories and a learning attached to it. No..As you may think it is not philosophy or teachings book. This is different. Some real time humorous incidents and the author attaches a meaning to it.

OK.. Lets come to the point.The lines which made me to ponder over my thoughts were "Thanks, Dad, for showing us another place to look for our games when they get lost." These are the lines exclaimed by the son of the author to him when the author forces the son to search in the room which was the least probable place to find the lost toy.

Same is with our life.When we don't find the way to meet our goals, we think that all the doors are shut and never think of alternatives and behave as if this is the end.

Just open your eyes and you would find the right thing, the thing that u wanted badly, the goal you wanted to accomplish badly. i think I have done that now, I have found out my alternative route to move on in life. I am quitting the present company and moving on to a new company.

Fingers crossed. Hoping for the best.