Saturday, January 31, 2009

World Citizen

The part of California that I lived in, there were a lot of South and Central American immigrants. I for never once had doubted that I look anything else than a pure bred Indian. However, I had a tough time acting dumb with strangers who would break out into a long Spanish rambling with me, assuming that I am of South American origin! The problem had become so bad, that I actually had to learn to say "Na Habla Espanol" to let the people know that I do not speak Spanish!

The past year had been relatively great, and I no longer had to prove my Indian identity. Since the new year however, I have been asked at least by a dozen people in my college hostel if I am "Persian"?!!

Now that's kinda funny. My mirror shattering looks can actually get me into half a dozen countries in the world without being looked at as a foreigner :) !!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The mythical productivity index

Before I even winked since my last blog post, I figured that it has been almost a month already. And all the while, I was thinking that we are "just" into the new year! So much for my new year resolutions of 2009 (not that I had any!).

This trimester I had made a resolution that I will be updated with all my readings, cases and submissions right from Week 1, so that at the end of the term I won't struggle any more. After all, haven't we all heard that "slow and steady" wins the race?

Yeah, so this time, I started working on all my assignments in and around Week 1 of my trimester itself. And if you guessed it right, I am still working on them (last 2 weeks of my trimester are left before the exams!). So much for starting early! Not only did I not get time to write blogs, day dream, and go about town, but also I spent days in front of the computer writing that one killer sentence in my assignment for days together!

After a lot of research ;) , I have come up with this "Productivity Index" of yours truly. Accordingly, I have figured that at the start of the trimester my Productivity is close to zero. Which means, if I have to read a chapter which I would normal read in an hour or two, I would spend more than 8 hours "ruminating" on it! Finally at the end of the trimester when I know that I have hardly a week to submit, my productivity magically goes up, and I finish loads and loads of documents; sometimes in a day!

Whew! So what's my resolution for the next trimester, you ask? Well, I am gonna start working on my assignments in the last week of the term :) and spend my earlier weeks pursuing the good things in life :) !!