Presentation

It's been a while i attended any sort of self development training
Since i had no work and simultaneously the 'Presentation Skills' training came up i opted for it.

Well the write up is about an observation on the presentation.
We had to give a 3 minute presentation for pre-assessment.

So i talked about a topic too. Just to make it interesting i took a funny topic.
I was sitting in the bus on my way back home,thinking about that episode
Inspite of being an ordinary presentation the topic was found interesting by the team. They got involved so much that they even forgot to give their observations.
A tangential discussion started based on my topic and few of them started talking about thier experience too. So what went wrong/right

I came to the conclusion:
Discussion can turnout good inspite of ordinary explanation if the topic is found interesting.
If this is true then what about the contrary side.
Can the discussion still be good with a very boring topic with extra-ordinary presentation?

Well lets see if i can recollect some examples on most common topics
Cricket - Indian Premiere League, a hit!
Romance - Movies: Same theme but diffent repesentations has resulted in blockbusters

So the contrary side also holds true :)

Fear n the Fight

Its been almost an year i had that horrible experience on flight.
The impact was so deep that even now i chose it only if must. Only if that is the only way out.

Since then i had almost decided that i wouldnt board a flight again.
Then after a couple of months, thought it is foolish and just to kill my fear i decided to fly again. Felt satisfied about my bravery....and called it 'I faced my fear'

But after that there were a couple of occasions where i could have chosen flying but ended up going by bus. Though i convinced myself that bus was cheaper...deep down it was that fear which stopped me from chosing to fly. The fear had crept back again without my notice

Finally i decided this time take on my fear and booked for a to-fro flight to chennai. I had been wanting to visit chennai and clubbed it with to meet my college mates.

Saturday evening was fun, Friend took me to a couple of pubs and was taken by surprise. I had underestimated the social life of the region.

Sunday morning i got a chance to check out few upmarket bicycles.
Bianchi-Liquigas (priced at a lakh plus rupees), Cannondale.

The food was great....typical south indian hotels with unlimited rice served. Being a veggie and with available options, ate like pig.

On my way back i was more prepared to fly....constantly convincing its better than dying everyday.

Trekking around myself

It was going to be a 3 day weekend!!
Wow!! being the initial reaction..and before i could further imagine myself enjoying a long wknd...
What am i gonna do with it?? Suddenly the joy turned into a worry.
Hard to digest but yes, nowadays weekends are turning into a misery. I get into the 'Cast Away' character on weekends here.

Had i been with my ex-colleagues/friends the least i could have used it to be an audience of 'Intellectual bakwaas' at CCD.
Even though a bakwaas is a bakwaas, not every bakwaas is digestible. There has to be a 'frequency match' for the bakwaas too

Its been four months since i returned to Pune i have hardly enjoyed the stay so far.

So finally decided to do some random act and booked for a 3 day trekking with my room mate.
Chakram Hikers Club from Bombay (Now i too prefer calling it Bombay)

The thrill was i was going to join people whom i don't know.
Far better than sitting at home and realizing on Sunday noon that another set of days went past with nothing out of it.

There had been a lot of thinking and talk of recession and layoffs.
Firstly: I badly wanted a 'break'. I wanted to disappear from my known world.

I am not going to share about my trekking but few things i experimented in those 3 days
Secondly: I wanted to get into the unknown group, to be part of that group.
I didn't wanted to be an invisible player of the trek
My observation so far says that it takes more than a friendly approach to get into the circle of people here.
So i just wanted to try and crack that.

Thirdly i wanted to tune up myself that i am going to enjoy every bit of it regardless of what may happen. (Call it self-hypnotism)
Lastly: Myself too being a reserved kind i wanted to try a personality makeover for this period.

At the end of the trek, i succeeded in second and fourth task and was moderately successful in first and third one.
Trek was exhaustive. We had been to Rohida and Rajgadh. A halt on Rajgadh for two nights was memorable.

It refreshed my memory of sleeping right under the stars and staring at them for hours,thinking nothing.
This was the first time i really felt happy about the poor network connectivity of my cell phone.
None of team members were able to use their cell phone, except a couple. i would say it is a rare sight.

The team was diverse. Had people from varied backgrounds starting from a 8th std kid, a blackberry user IIMA grad, a film maker to an advocate.
Not bathing for two and half days, drinking water which could be termed as sewage water stared at my "Hygienic Me".
But breaking patterns is fun many a times... The pattern of day-to-day activities.

Commitment, forced

Okay i did not expected that i would have to start watering the plants.
Its not that i hate doing that...but why on earth would i take up such a responsibility.
It simply contradicts the rules of a carefree bachelor's life.
As i moved to this rented house, the owner requested me to water the plants he maintained in his balcony. I had to reluctantly agree for this new DAY-TO-DAY activity.
I wasn't ready to take up the blame for their death.
As expected i missed watering the plants for the first two days.
Slowly i started thinking about them...
Third day i tried hard to remember and watered them. I felt like i saved few lives..:)
It gave me a sense of fulfilling my resposibility.
Somehow after that, i have started watering them every alternate days
After every watering i feel like i have saved their life for few more days.

Into the waters of Pune

This had to happen.
Relocated to Pune last week. Though i was prepared for it, wasnt expecting to so abrupt.
Packed my things and left to yet-to-explore city. Had two days time.
I had to find myself a place for a month in two days. Strangely i wasnt worried about it much. Call it a blind faith or luck or both or yet another exhibition of dumbness. But it worked.
A friend's courtesy resulted in sharing a 15 by 15 ft. room for time being. Reminded me of life of yester years. Its been 2 weeks here and getting used to the new city.
Here are some of the conclusions so far:
1. The auto fare has no relation with distance you travel. Same distance can result in drastically different fares. Auto drivers haven't found the use of meters yet.
2. The bus stops has nothing to do with the city buses. Bus drive takes the call on whether to stop or not. Number of people waiting at bus stop is not his measure to stop
Same bus can travel in different routes. The only constants are start and ends. Back to back buses indicate's a big wait for next bus which can stretch to even a couple of hours.
Bus conductors retain the rights to give back the change or not.
3. The direction given for an asked destination is dependent on which language you ask them. The only way to find out is to ask as many people and proceed based on the concensus.
4. A 10 minute walk should be assumed as a minimum of 5-6 kilometer distance.
5. Brokers decide on who should stay where and how much they should pay. The comission is annual, not one time settlement.
6. Laundry guy owns no responsibility of your clothes. Its uour job to follow up, get it pressed and help them find out your clothes from the filled up racks.
7. Finding an ATM is a treasure hunt.

Food and weather calms you down though