Friday, July 27, 2007

What on internet do I dare blog...

Hi,

I was thinking - why not re-visit the idioms of good old English and make them more contemporary. I have some examples below:

Situation: Say you do not understand the motive of the lazy moron who has been bugging you day in and day out to sell some credit card to you, you would say,
Old English: 'What on earth are you bugging me for when I made it clear that I would never in my life buy your credit card!'.
New English: 'What on internet are you bugging me for when I made it clear that I would never in my life buy your credit card!'.

Situation: You tell your partner that you see cracks in your relationship.
Old English: 'I dare say our relationship is ending'
New English: 'I dare blog our relationship is ending'.

Situation: You told your prof that he is mistaken about sonething.
Old English: 'He got very hot under the collar when I suggested that he might be mistaken.'
New English: 'He got very hot under the earphones when I suggested that he might be mistaken.'

Do suggest some more...

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Five Point Some Potter...

Hi,

I had watched the play 'Five Point Someone' staged by the group EVAM in Chowdiah Memorial Hall last Saturday. It was a nice adaptation and there were some nice creative techniques used in the play to make the stage look like a classroom the Insti roof and also the hostel room of the 3 main characters. They have a website where you can book tickets for any of their forthcoming plays http://www.evam.in/

Neways, I have been reading 'The Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'. Yeah don't blame me but I had always thought that Harry Potter was meant for kids and never got the interest to read it. Now, I have given in to the hype created by the release of the 7th book in the series and am aiming to get to the 7th book in a month or 2. I have almost finished the first one. Though I have watched the movie, I find the book a very book read. JK Rowling is an amazing writer. The simple language she uses makes it a very light read and to her imagination, all I can say is 'hats off'. Will compare the different books in the Harry Potter series in the coming posts. So keep visiting.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

New initiative at work - iPAD

Hi,

I have taken this new initiative at work iPAD to make Project Activity Documentation easy. Basically, I have been handling the audits of our team and had got several comments from the quality team over the documentation of team's activities. The team is supposed to maintain an activity log, peer review records, Minutes of meetings, delivery mails, appreciation mails, Issue Register, Weekly status reports and what not. Each of the above has a prescribed format and whenever an activity happens at work you need to save a file in the prescribed format at a particular location. I myself had faced a lot of problems trying to save these files. So I had decided to create one excel sheet with each activity log as a tab so that you can fill in all the data at one place (you can give it a geek tag - data integration but this is more from the enduser perspective - the enduser's headache gets reduced a lot as he/she just has to keep one sheet open all the time and fill in data whenever an activity happens in his/her project).

Since this sheet is a log of various activities that happen in the project, I decided to call it PAD (Project Activity Documentation). It also sounds like a notepad, so gives an intuitive feel as to what it is meant for. And then suddenly I got the idea of naming it iPAD or myPAD (inspired from google's iGoogle, Apple's iPod and MSN's myMSN, Yahoo's myYahoo etc) and then we agreed upon the name iPAD since i would stand for Integrations which is our team name. So finally I have created an excel sheet template with 7 tabs and named it iPAD (Integrations Project Activity Documentation). I see some initial success in using it. Earlier, it would require some n reminders before getting the teammates to fill in various sheets. Now, everyone keeps their own iPAD sheet open and fills in the required data. Hope this carries on well and yeah I am really going to boast about it in any interviews I face later in my career. I personally am very satisfied with the initiative.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Acting Classes

Hi,

Yes, I have joined acting classes. There is this group called MiSF!T owned by this theatre actor cum director Ratan Thakore Grant which holds acting workshops for beginners. MisF!T stands for 'My Interest Stys Firmly In Theatre'. Quite an innovative acronym. Ratan is a very nice individual with absolutely great brains and also a very energetic personality. The kind of energy he puts into the classes will make you want to perform your best whenever he asks you to enact something out. Also, the theory he teaches is so very logical and makes great sense. Kallu, Chauhan and all have already started making fun of me, but theek hai, I am doing what I enjoy.

There were 2 exercises Ratan had made us do which have really made me less nervous than I was before (not just on stage but also in the real life). In one of the initial classes he would ask everyone in the class to give every other person in the class a Page 3 kiss (you basically do not touch the cheek of the other person but just act as though you have given a kiss). Initially you blush to do this, but after doing it, most of your inhibitions are gone. Last week he has made us blindfold a partner and make the partner walk on the road. When I was blindfolded and taken out by my partner, all my senses got heightened and I really started observing things better. One of my old friends had recognised me and asked me if something happened to my eyes. I laughed and told him nothing happened. Neways, after you go through a lot of raodside guys and vehicle riders staring at you in sympathy and curiosity, you lose your inhibitions and nervousness. Also since your eyes are closed, you start observing with the remaining senses and realise how much confusion eyes really add to your mind...

Back to Blogspot

Hi,

Its been years since I was able to access this blogspot. I thought my account would have expired by now but thankfully it is very much alive. I had a lot of problems over the past 2 years in maintaining a single blog site. Once I decide upon a particular blogsite, my company would block that address and force me to find a new one accessible. But from now on, I think I will stick to just this one. If I am not able to access it, I will just post my blogs through mail to the same address. The shifting of address has resulted in my identity crisis and also I have lost some fans over the last 2 years. I am not going to let this happen from now on.

Neways, it has been 6 months since I got married and life has been really different since then. My lifestyle has changed a lot. During the months of Feb and March, I was engaged in Aerobics at my company, but after that I had discontinued mainly because of the glue on my ass which doesn't let me move from my seat. I had been learning carnatic music but I had discontinued even that last month. My music sir was a little disappointed, but somehow, I thought of moving forward. My attitude doesn't allow me to practice Carnatic music daily (and believe me that is really essential if you are to learn singing). Since last month I have been attending a theatre acting workshop help by a theatre group called MiSF!T. This has really been a great experience for me so far. Now I know what to think of if I am on stage and how to get that expression right, those dialogues right and the act right. The head of this group, Ratan is a very nice personality who makes you think a lot and at the same time puts you on stage making you apply what is taught. I will update you more on what has been happening in these acting classes in the next post. Till then.... bbye....