knicq
Monday, May 30, 2005
Of Time Management, Variables, and Relationships therein.
I am terribly short on time. Cliche', you say. I agree.
It isn't as if I am bogged down by work, which, by the way, is not to say that I am not busy with work all the time. Its just that I am very bad with my planning, prioritizing, and in general, my time management. I sound like my managers, my teachers and my parents here, which doubles as testimony to the fact that these traits are not newly acquired. They have been honed over a period of time, and have been elevated to art forms in their own right.
A normal day begins with me waking up early, and going back to sleep until I am running late, and thus sets in the chaos that defines the rest of my day. Sometimes, I am able to tear myself away from the bed, force myself under the shower, and push myself into those articles of clothing that seem to be undergoing a continuous shrinking phase. Wifey thinks otherwise, and maintains to my chagrin that it is not the clothes that are shrinking; it is I who is "expanding". She has tried to prove her point by using that measuring tape, and showing that while the tape shows the measurements to be the same as the week before on those clothes, it continues to show a general increase in my measurements.
I have explained to her the importance of maintaining a scientific approach, and the need to remember that in an equation if one must have two variables, one must not discount any of the factors in that equation as a possible candidate to be one of those variables. More precisely, she must not discount the possibility that I may be the fixed factor here, while the tape and the clothes might be the variables.
Granted, it must count as quite an oddity that the clothes and the tape seem to be shrinking in tandem, if one may call the phenomenon so, but whoever said life did not have its fair share of oddities. Besides, who can say what intricate relationships can develop between measuring tape and cloth. They do, after all, work with each other a lot in their general course of life, or should it be lives.
A multitude of management gurus and trainers have been at pains to make me understand the importance of paying attention to relationships that develop with people you work with. What is there to suggest that non-human colleagues, like the two under discussion here, are not apprised of this importance by their respective management gurus? Note, how those officious words like respective, appraise and note have started making their way in this piece as soon as the management gurus are mentioned? That is because these words and these people, the management gurus, have a symbiotic relationship too, one that manifests itself as soon as one of the two is given some airtime (read blogtime).
I digress, and then I digress farther and further. I was telling you about how I have had to convince wifey that because of the relationship the measuring tape has built with the clothes, it has begun shrinking along with the clothes, which is why she cannot really deduce from the ever constant and ever changing measurements of my clothes and myself respectively that I am getting fat. Its just the clothes that keep shrinking.
In my heart of hearts though, I know I am getting fat, but because Little Baji Abez, Owlie, Momma , and Crayon collectively insist that I am not fat - not yet anyway, I must refer to myself as almost fat. However, one cannot admit to being less than, or for that matter, more than physically fit in front of one's spouse, I must subscribe to the theory of symbiotic relationship between my clothes and the measuring tape.
So, on those rare occasions when I am able to tear myself apart from the bed, and shove myself under the shower, and push myself into my clothes, I get complacent in the knowledge that I have woken up on time, and got ready in time, and end up getting late reading the paper before leaving, or driving too slow and staying too calm in traffic snarls. Inevitably, I arrive late to work, and invariably get pulled up for it, amongst other things. The one silver lining, of course, is that coming to work late habitually, sort of leads to low expectations on punctuality, and hence roaring applause when on that rare occasion one ambles in before time. One, being a self-proclaimed narcissist, is not averse to applause whatever the reason for such applause may be.
Jalali Baba says I have a knack for looking at the bright side, and this, he says, gives him nausea. Life is black, he maintains, and when it is not so, it is a dark shade of grey. Anyone who perceives any white in it, according to him, has yet to be plugged out of the matrix.
Jalali Baba has an inherent love for all things gloomy, and is of the firm opinion that his strong dislike for yours truly stems from the sunny disposition he finds me exhibiting on more occasions than he finds acceptable for a normal, likeable, depressed, and depressing human being.
Oh, and that thing about Jalali Baba and Matrix, and Jalali Baba and South Park, and Jalali baba and Dilbert, and Jalali Baba and Platoon, and Jalali Baba and Full Metal Jacket, and Jalali Baba and the old gentleman who made him gloomy in a sunny way...?
- That's going to have to wait. ¶ 5/30/2005 06:37:00 PM
It isn't as if I am bogged down by work, which, by the way, is not to say that I am not busy with work all the time. Its just that I am very bad with my planning, prioritizing, and in general, my time management. I sound like my managers, my teachers and my parents here, which doubles as testimony to the fact that these traits are not newly acquired. They have been honed over a period of time, and have been elevated to art forms in their own right.
A normal day begins with me waking up early, and going back to sleep until I am running late, and thus sets in the chaos that defines the rest of my day. Sometimes, I am able to tear myself away from the bed, force myself under the shower, and push myself into those articles of clothing that seem to be undergoing a continuous shrinking phase. Wifey thinks otherwise, and maintains to my chagrin that it is not the clothes that are shrinking; it is I who is "expanding". She has tried to prove her point by using that measuring tape, and showing that while the tape shows the measurements to be the same as the week before on those clothes, it continues to show a general increase in my measurements.
I have explained to her the importance of maintaining a scientific approach, and the need to remember that in an equation if one must have two variables, one must not discount any of the factors in that equation as a possible candidate to be one of those variables. More precisely, she must not discount the possibility that I may be the fixed factor here, while the tape and the clothes might be the variables.
Granted, it must count as quite an oddity that the clothes and the tape seem to be shrinking in tandem, if one may call the phenomenon so, but whoever said life did not have its fair share of oddities. Besides, who can say what intricate relationships can develop between measuring tape and cloth. They do, after all, work with each other a lot in their general course of life, or should it be lives.
A multitude of management gurus and trainers have been at pains to make me understand the importance of paying attention to relationships that develop with people you work with. What is there to suggest that non-human colleagues, like the two under discussion here, are not apprised of this importance by their respective management gurus? Note, how those officious words like respective, appraise and note have started making their way in this piece as soon as the management gurus are mentioned? That is because these words and these people, the management gurus, have a symbiotic relationship too, one that manifests itself as soon as one of the two is given some airtime (read blogtime).
I digress, and then I digress farther and further. I was telling you about how I have had to convince wifey that because of the relationship the measuring tape has built with the clothes, it has begun shrinking along with the clothes, which is why she cannot really deduce from the ever constant and ever changing measurements of my clothes and myself respectively that I am getting fat. Its just the clothes that keep shrinking.
In my heart of hearts though, I know I am getting fat, but because Little Baji Abez
So, on those rare occasions when I am able to tear myself apart from the bed, and shove myself under the shower, and push myself into my clothes, I get complacent in the knowledge that I have woken up on time, and got ready in time, and end up getting late reading the paper before leaving, or driving too slow and staying too calm in traffic snarls. Inevitably, I arrive late to work, and invariably get pulled up for it, amongst other things. The one silver lining, of course, is that coming to work late habitually, sort of leads to low expectations on punctuality, and hence roaring applause when on that rare occasion one ambles in before time. One, being a self-proclaimed narcissist, is not averse to applause whatever the reason for such applause may be.
Jalali Baba says I have a knack for looking at the bright side, and this, he says, gives him nausea. Life is black, he maintains, and when it is not so, it is a dark shade of grey. Anyone who perceives any white in it, according to him, has yet to be plugged out of the matrix.
Jalali Baba has an inherent love for all things gloomy, and is of the firm opinion that his strong dislike for yours truly stems from the sunny disposition he finds me exhibiting on more occasions than he finds acceptable for a normal, likeable, depressed, and depressing human being.
Oh, and that thing about Jalali Baba and Matrix, and Jalali Baba and South Park, and Jalali baba and Dilbert, and Jalali Baba and Platoon, and Jalali Baba and Full Metal Jacket, and Jalali Baba and the old gentleman who made him gloomy in a sunny way...?
- That's going to have to wait. ¶ 5/30/2005 06:37:00 PM
Friday, May 13, 2005
The Swamp.
It gets more and more difficult. Updating, that is, as more and more time elapses. Initially, it is just that you do not have the time to update, and you have a resonable number of topics lined up to blog about. Then, in a few days, when you do find sometime, you sit yourself down in front of a painfully slow dial-up connection, and as your computer struggles to find you that often stimulating, and at times depressing blank page you so love or dread as the case might be given your former or latter state of mind, you catch yourself wondering which of the topics to blog about first. Being the narcisisst that you are, you do not want to compress possible multitude of updates into one lame update, so choose you must.
From your vantage point in front of that addictive keyboard, you scan your mental horizon for an idea, a topic, to get started with. Then it strikes you. Your mind is a murky, and fatal swamp, where many an idea has perished after begging and pleading with you to save it for days. All this while, as the swamp was sucking those topics in, you were running helter skelter trying to get your gear in order, and by the time you did get it in order, those ideas were all but gone. Dejected and frustrated, you hurl abuses, and if you can find some, stones at the swamp, and look deperately in the dark to see if there is at least one lucky survivor you can redeem yourself with. Just when you are planning to give up, and walk away, you hear a sound, a cry for help, and you turn around excitedly and you look into the swamp with renewed vigor and rekindled hope. What do you know, there is someone to be saved, you strap your rescue gear on, and waddle into the swamp. There it is, a topic almost drowned, holding onto a low hanging branch for dear life. Your excitement wanes as you recognize your one redeeming chance to be that stubborn &$@*&@ who, you should have known, would not have let the murky swamp get to it, even if you had got late by another month or so. Time after time, as team after team of topics had lost battle after battle to the swamp, this one survivor of a topic had made it through until help had arrived. So much so, that even you begin to suspect if the bloody thing is in cohoots with the swamp itself. Why does the swamp excuse this pathetic excuse for a topic everytime - this aptly named "My excuse, lame or otherwise, for not having updated for so long" topic.
Should you initiate an inquiry into the background of this topic? Should you excuse it from service until its name has been cleared?
You tell me. ¶ 5/13/2005 04:57:00 PM
From your vantage point in front of that addictive keyboard, you scan your mental horizon for an idea, a topic, to get started with. Then it strikes you. Your mind is a murky, and fatal swamp, where many an idea has perished after begging and pleading with you to save it for days. All this while, as the swamp was sucking those topics in, you were running helter skelter trying to get your gear in order, and by the time you did get it in order, those ideas were all but gone. Dejected and frustrated, you hurl abuses, and if you can find some, stones at the swamp, and look deperately in the dark to see if there is at least one lucky survivor you can redeem yourself with. Just when you are planning to give up, and walk away, you hear a sound, a cry for help, and you turn around excitedly and you look into the swamp with renewed vigor and rekindled hope. What do you know, there is someone to be saved, you strap your rescue gear on, and waddle into the swamp. There it is, a topic almost drowned, holding onto a low hanging branch for dear life. Your excitement wanes as you recognize your one redeeming chance to be that stubborn &$@*&@ who, you should have known, would not have let the murky swamp get to it, even if you had got late by another month or so. Time after time, as team after team of topics had lost battle after battle to the swamp, this one survivor of a topic had made it through until help had arrived. So much so, that even you begin to suspect if the bloody thing is in cohoots with the swamp itself. Why does the swamp excuse this pathetic excuse for a topic everytime - this aptly named "My excuse, lame or otherwise, for not having updated for so long" topic.
Should you initiate an inquiry into the background of this topic? Should you excuse it from service until its name has been cleared?
You tell me. ¶ 5/13/2005 04:57:00 PM
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Inteha Pasand.
Meri baton main zeher daikho,
Meri aankhun main qahar daikho,
Do qadam jo peechey hata hoon,
To kia samajh baithey ho?
Tsunami hun, meri uth'ti hai leher daikho!
Main nafrat ke markun main,
Kab se hoon nabrad aazma,
Mairey Allah ka Qahar,
Masajid tak main ja ke gira.
Main sheeshiyun main aag bhar ke,
Rukh-e-zeba jala doonga,
Jo lehrai ga gaisoo,
Main gardan uda doonga,
Main kitaab chupa doonga,
Main qalam chura loonga,
Likhney waley haath qalam karunga,
Main har press jala doonga,
Maulana jo keh den,
Main madrassun main bum chuppa doonga.
Haan... Main deeniyat sikha doonga,
Main la deeniyyat mita doonga!
Main intiha pasand nahin hoon logo,
Maira maslak Islam hai!
Main salamti ki khatir,
Salamti kee bali chadha doonga!
Surprising how editing can sometimes be such a simple job. Just removed a few words here and there, and a line there and a line there, and Voila! ¶ 5/11/2005 05:06:00 PM
Meri aankhun main qahar daikho,
Do qadam jo peechey hata hoon,
To kia samajh baithey ho?
Tsunami hun, meri uth'ti hai leher daikho!
Main nafrat ke markun main,
Kab se hoon nabrad aazma,
Mairey Allah ka Qahar,
Masajid tak main ja ke gira.
Main sheeshiyun main aag bhar ke,
Rukh-e-zeba jala doonga,
Jo lehrai ga gaisoo,
Main gardan uda doonga,
Main kitaab chupa doonga,
Main qalam chura loonga,
Likhney waley haath qalam karunga,
Main har press jala doonga,
Maulana jo keh den,
Main madrassun main bum chuppa doonga.
Haan... Main deeniyat sikha doonga,
Main la deeniyyat mita doonga!
Main intiha pasand nahin hoon logo,
Maira maslak Islam hai!
Main salamti ki khatir,
Salamti kee bali chadha doonga!
Surprising how editing can sometimes be such a simple job. Just removed a few words here and there, and a line there and a line there, and Voila! ¶ 5/11/2005 05:06:00 PM
