7 Effective ways of killing time @ an internship..

Imagine a work place where

a) You are provided with a desktop but access to all social networking, entertainment related websites in addition to gmail/yahoo is denied.

b) Stereo headsets of superior quality are lying on your desk and you are not allowed to play songs excepting during the break hours.

c) You resort to playing games in 'Windows games explorer'( which you generally never give a thought even) but your guide is seated just 5 feet diagonally opposite to you..

  IT IS INDEED SORT OF A CONSTRAINED FREEDOM..

How FORTUNATE the girl/guy must have been right?? Luck doesn't favor everyone all the time but it does to me.. And this time, it knocked on my door in the guise of a 'Summer Internship @ FLSmidth' !!

As most of their work is highly confidential, these 'Smidthans' dont invovle internees in any of their on-going projects lest their 'Standards' could be misused. If you are serious about your summer training, then you are literally expected to persaude/beg them for work (But why the hell would one crave for work when there are so many other intresting alternatives to pass your time? )!!

Not only are the working hours comfortable but also the food at this place is delicious. In my case atleast,this intern is serving me the purpose acting as a transition from the "Vetti max life of NTU" to the "Most awaited busy semester" of my programme.

Having said so, one can now easily comprehend the necessity of acquainting oneself with a few 'Tips to kill time'(effect of JEE factories prompted me to use this phrase..).

I could come up with 7 ways as the title says ( actually 6 but made it 7 to make it sound simialr to my fav-'7 habits of ..' by stephen covey)

i) Start your day with 'google news'. One advantage of google news is that you can read several reviews of the same issue. People possesing debate oriented mindset would thoroughly enjoy it.

ii) Take a break for every half n hr and try all varieties of tea/coffee available @ the snacks counter.. Trust me, you would admit that these taste much better than the CCD levels.

iii) Follow "Work if only required" policy at all times. And if you are lucky enough, you might even find a mall next to your work place which might tempt you to skip the work.

iv) This is an amazing opportunity for you to unleash the surfing skills within you as the net speed is generally Gbps. Make the best out of it.

v) Also if you are enthusiastic enough, you can expand your social network using the company's brand name on your fb profile.

vi) Start early- leave late for lunch keeping in view the lengthy queues and the time you need for savoring your meal.

vii) And finally but sadly, do work in your leisure else chances of you getting screwed during review are high and that might lead to an extension spoiling your later plans... 

Hope these tips serve you well at your intern..

MindRewindMania

As Abhimanyu, while in the womb, learnt how to enter the battle formation but not how to come out of it..

A river's current born in the stony womb of the mountain had learnt how to go forward, not how to retrace its journey back..

Alas, a river's current, youth, time, this world, all of you can only go forward and not return on the path you have left behind, strewn with golden pebbles of memory.

It is only a human mind that looks backwards, the rest of the world cares nothing about it...

And we humans though very well aware of it, can't help winding and rewinding our memory..

I have become a victim of this "MindWindMania" after my return from Thai tour. I have started constructing metaphors based on scenic beauties of Phuketh to characterize human nature. Though most of them are very weird and make no sense at all, I am enjoying them thoroughly.

I am no good a poet else this post would have been filled with amazing poetic appraisals of the islands of Phuketh. One is ought to go there in one's life time.

The immediate second thought that pops up into my mind as soon as I remember Phuketh is the Para-sailing I had tried at the Coral islands. I made all possible gestures I could come up with, to convey my lack of knowledge in swimming, to the guide who was a typical Thai native. Alas.. I made it!

When I was soaring up high in the air, many thoughts waded me. Worst of worst being- " What if something goes wrong all of a sudden?! The moment this terrific thought splashed into my mind, I could think of very few people and the last messages I wanted to share with them.. :P  As I was slowly drifting from one thought to the other enjoying the cool chilling breeze parallelly, I heard a few voices from the shore screaming at me with lots of confusing gestures. All I could understand was that I was expected to do something in order to descend the parasail. Oops! I don't remember what the guide had told me before I set off. Shall I untie myself from the sail so that some saviour from the gang beneath would rescue me from drowning into the water?! But surprisingly, I had not put in the slightest effort to rewind my memory and recollect the guide's words. Probably this is what people call "Fate". Anyways, I am here which makes it evident that I had somehow reached the shore :P :) And my friends who were observing all this from a distance say that mine was a perfect landing :D May be it is!!

However, this trip has had its impact left on me.. which I am still cherishing.. :)

My name is Complicated !!

Never ever in my life did I expect that I would be addressed by my surname- Uppu, which means 'salt' in my mother-tongue, Telugu. In fact that would be the least thing I would ask anyone to do. Now that I am left with no other choice than accepting the fact that my foreign friends would even more spoil my name, I have decided to better go along with them rather than put myself into trouble trying to teach them pronounce my name correctly. 

My first trial with a Chinese girl went this way:

me: Hi. Hello.. your good name??

her: ___.. How about you??

me: Sree Lakshmi ! (Better I make things easy for her even before she makes an attempt else Goddess Lakshmi might feel bad :P ) You can call me Sree.. S R E E.. sree..

her: Three?? 3??

me: (Good that she has made a gesture else I wouldn't have spotted out immediately how exactly she understood my name!! ) Noooo.. Its Sree... S R E E.. not T H R E E..

her: Ohh... Okk.. SHHHREEE... !! ( Oops.. English alphabets are not of much help in this case.. Probably I have to learn their script and only then can I produce the same sound.. )

me: (No other option left Sree.. You have to do it.. cmn.. !!) Err.. You might as well try calling me Uppuuuu if you find Sree difficult to spell.

her: Ohhh.. Uppuu.. Uppu.. Upppu... !! Cool !! ( Enough ... plzzz stop repeating it for god's sake.. )

 I guess its only we Indians who can TWIST our tongue whichever way we want.. But that somehow landed me into problems..

Hmm... So.. gave up after that.. But good that she had put in her effort and learnt to address me SHREE which relieves me to a great extent :) :) And shez become one of my good friends here..