Being Wrong!!

Most of us make mistakes or have made mistakes and ended up learning from them. I know that some people feel so bad about being wrong and try to make amends or sometimes it's just the other way, wherein they try to justify what they did.

Personally, in my case when I do something that I shouldn't have done, I acknowledge I was wrong and kinda try not to do it a second time. I've tried to justify my deeds before, but as I grew older and mature I just realized that I wasn't getting anywhere with that attitude of mine. Besides I don't lose anything by accepting I was wrong, than walk around proudly with my foolish dogmas and expecting people to like me!!

But I do come across people that don't want to be wrong, being cautious is one thing but trying to cover up is a totally different thing. I came across someone that had the urge to prove me wrong and ended up leaving a comment on my page so I take the time to explain why I did what I did and I notice this person just deletes his/her comment leaving my comment appear out of context. I was quite surprised to actually see someone take things so seriously to a point where they delete the comment on someone else's page. I realize the comment didn't make much sense but taking it out once I provide an explanation is just silly or atleast I feel that way. This act just makes me wonder to what lengths this person would go to cover up something? What's the worst that could've happened if the comment had just stayed? Really, nothing would've happened. I don't think anybody will jump to a conclusion or judge you because you said something that didn't make sense or was just totally wrong in such trivial scenarios. If people ever did that I think they are really shallow!!!

As for me, I just left my comment to stay because I don't really care about the few that are going to pass judgments about me by just looking at this one comment.

Did you say MCP???

I was holding off from writing this blog but I saw this question on TV 'Are we ready for a woman president yet?' or some news about 'Women's Rights' and I was thinking about it and in the end I thought I'd just go ahead and write this blog.

I don't know how many of you have frequently dealt with Male chauvinists in your lives, I feel lucky because I didn't have to deal with male chauvinists for the majority of my life. Ever since I was a child I have always enjoyed a level playing ground. In fact, in high school I studied in a class where the first 5 to 10 rank holders were all girl kids and even engineering college was quite good there were no signs of chauvinism anywhere...and same was the story with grad school.

So, pretty much until the completion of grad school I had never witnessed male chauvinism or even seen men who thought they were superior or had an edge over women. I did witness something weird upon graduating from grad school and when I was searching for my first job. It took me a little over two months to find a job so, during that time I was generally getting advice from others (both solicited and unsolicited).

I happened to talk to this man and some of the stuff that he mentioned really did strike me as odd. Here's some stuff that I still happen to remember: 'mostly employers don't prefer women because they need to provide them maternity leave', 'Why do you need a really good job? if you happen to get a really good one then you wouldn't want to quit it even if you get married to someone in a different city', 'If you get married to someone in a different city, what will you tell your employer that you'll telecommute?', When I mentioned that interviews went well he was like 'yea, probably the manager just flirted with you'.

I do understand some (actually just one) of the stuff mentioned above like having to take maternity leave but I fail to comprehend the need to settle for a mediocre job so that I wouldn't feel bad when I have to quit!! I still don't get it!! Wouldn't you rather have a good job to work on irrespective of what happens in the future. I do understand that some decisions need to be future proof like buying electronics, appliances, retirement investments, etc...but doing a mediocre job so that you won't feel bad when quitting is just beyond me!! The closest analogy I can think of is "Fall sick totally don't treat your illness that way others won't feel bad when you die because there's the comforting thought that you were a sick person and you would have died anyway" On any day I would opt for a good job that way if I need to quit, I would at least have had job satisfaction and would have pocketed more money.

I understand maybe I can get lucky with one job interview because some flirted with me, but can you really get lucky with 3 out of 4 job interviews especially when you are interviewed by people of either gender???

Well, I did hear the advice and I did what I do best with such obnoxious advices just ignored it and took a job which I thought was something that I liked...I like it still...so, I guess I made the right call after all.

So, after all this ranting of mine here's the inside scoop I'm really thankful for the kind of men that I have in my life be it my father or my soon to be husband or friends they have all been great. I know what I dealt with isn't the most vulgar exhibition of chauvinism but I do feel bad for the women who happen to be a part of the lives of such men. I really don't envy them. I guess it's my time to feel content for all the goodwill that has been shown towards me by the people of the opposite gender in my life :)

All alone and by myself ...

Over the weekend my roomie had asked me to join her for going to this movie Cloverfield, I was having a horrible migraine and had taken a pain killer only then so, I told her that I'm not sure and asked her when she was planning to leave and she replied saying she wud be going to the 10pm show. I thought maybe I can go if my migraine gets any better but in the end I just chose not to go and went back to my room around 8:00 pm and started listening to some music just to distract myself.

At about 9:30pm I heard a loud door bang and I concluded that it was my roomie who was just leaving to go watch the movie. I was quite sedated because of the medicine but I still continued listening to music.

Then a little past 10:15 pm or so I heard a laugh from my roomie's room. I was quite terrified, to be sure that the laughter infact came from her room I immediately turned off the music and I was just still. And at this point I was just thinking of the spirits and what would I do if there was one in the other room?? I've seen people acting like they were possessed by God or ghosts and every time I witnessed one such lunatic act in the past I was never alone and I usually run away to some other room or I'll just distance myself as much as I could, so that I can just run away when the spirit comes chasing me!!

But this time I was all by myself not knowing what to do. So, I tried to stay as quiet as possible and listen if there was any noise coming from the other room. I heard the laugh again, I realised it sounded more like my roomie, so I was terrified even more. I was wondering who could possibly be there and laugh just like her?? In the minutes that followed I heard the laugh multiple times and felt that it would be impossible for anyone to just laugh like her that many times.

After a while I heard some noises from the other room and I finally mustered some courage and went out of my room and checked near the apartment door and looking at our shoes, I realized that after all my roomie might not have gone to watch the movie. That thought did comfort me a little bit but then I was still a little afraid to go to her room and check...so, I had a glass of water and went back to my room, since I was quite sedated I ended up sleeping through the night.

The next day I got to know that my roomie indeed had stayed at home the previous night. So, finally my fear was put to rest and we all went and watched Cloverfield that evening. Watching Cloverfield was quite an unforgettable experience...maybe I can write another blog about the aftermath of watching Cloverfield :P

Where we would be...

I was listening to Porcupine Tree's 'Where we would be' track from the album Lightbulb Sun. This isn't the best song in the album or for that matter even one of the top 5 songs but I still like it because of the mellow tone and beautiful lyrics. The song is basically about how we don't become the person that we dreamt of becoming when we were young. Every time I listen to this song I have this bittersweet longing to go back in time and continue to dream of how I thought my life would shape up when I grew up.

I'm sure most of us have envisioned ourselves of becoming something like either our favorite celebrity or athlete or musician or a bunch of other things!! For me it was becoming a lawyer, being the 10-13 yr old that I was at that time, I thought it was a lot cooler to be a lawyer. My dad went to law school as a part time student at that time because he was passionate about studying law. I was interested right from the time he started preparing for the entrance exam to get into a law school until the day he graduated out of law school.

The things that interested me the most about studying law and practicing it was the subtlety, the requirement for logical reasoning and a whole lot of emotional detachment. It's quite fascinating to zero-in on some extremely vital information that others couldn't find or ignored. Your skills of reasoning get tested every single day with every single case you see or deal with. I shall NOT go into detail about the reasoning skills as that tends to annoy most people. But, I like the emotional detachment aspect, wherein you really truly need to be disinterested and hold no bias no matter what. It's human nature to look back in time and make decision based on our own personal experience or from what we've heard and seen but it's really a unique ability to be under control and not let your own bias interfere with your judgment. The ability to be strong enough and just interpret the book and not throw your 2 cents in, is something I always wanted to do.

Though, as I grew up I did become something or someone different from what I wanted to be...but the things that I mentioned as interesting do interest me until today which kinda makes me want to go back in time whenever I listen to this song and just build on that dream every now and then :)

Who gave them jobs??

I always wonder how some people managed to get into hi-tech sector with their sub par knowledge. Even though I have nothing against them, I sometimes find it annoying when they ask me really stupid questions like why don't you use notepad instead of emacs? or ask me if I have a digital camera when I say I'm interested in photography!!! or asking how to switch on an mp3 player, or asking for an example for using every single Tcl command, or sometimes just by saying 'I just want a workaround' when they don't even know what the actual problem is!!! Sometimes not even knowing how to calculate log values even with a scientific calculator!!!

I agree I'm not the smartest person that ever lived but I can clearly see why I'm not dumb. One thing that I think of most of the times is how others deal with these people? Do they get as annoyed as I do? How do they react when asked lame questions? Do they laugh at the question and make the other person get the message that the question isn't worth replying at all? or do they just answer it one time and then just stay away from this person???

I do understand that not everyone knows everything but it's beyond me to see how they cannot understand the obvious!!! How could someone not be ashamed of being an illiterati? How can they not bring themselves to know things that they were already supposed to know but which they don't know yet??

But as much as I get annoyed, I really do admire their ability to actually get the job or survive in hi-tech sector only because they have to for a variety of reasons and not because they actually want to do this. IMO most people would be equally happy and far more satisfied doing some other not to tech job. But still it makes me wonder if they really like doing what they do?? Wouldn't you actually lose interest when you are made to work on something that you don't care about?????? I sure do wish I could be them for just a day and really see for myself as to what goes on in their minds!!!!

Body Image!!

I constantly bump into women(non-obese ones) that have this desperation to look like someone else more than themselves and I'm quite amazed to see the great lengths to which they go in their desperation to look good. Most people starve themselves or change their diet and get all label conscious and try to get Salt that doesn't say Sodium in the list of ingredients!!! Sometimes its even worse when they think size 2 is bigger and want to reduce to Size '0' or even size '00'.
As much as I support the need to stay fit and wanting to look your best, I don't understand this senseless ruining of your health to look like something or someone that you are not. If you have a naturally big frame you'll never get smaller to a point where you can squeeze yourself into a size 0 clothing and the irony is most women know this, this in turn makes me wonder if they just ignore this fact or if their desperation just prevails over logic!!!
In addition to this wanting to look like someone else ailment most of these women have such poor self-esteem to a point where they have to call normal women fat and ugly just to make themselves feel better. Some women in their 30's pick clothes from the Juniors and girls section and then there's the other kind that would devour the designer outlets to look young and hep without actually understanding that your apparel can only enhance your looks but will not give you a totally new look that you don't have(substitute for a plastic surgery)!!
Majority of these women seek attention and have this need to be noticed and what I don't understand is why do you have to go through so much to be noticed or to even make your presence felt. I constantly wonder how could anyone expect to be noticed or want to be accepted when they themselves cannot accept who they are or how they look!! If you are not comfortable with your own self how could others be comfortable with you??

AdSense or NonSense

I noticed that most people have a whole bunch of ads that appear on their blog page at first I wondered if they really got someone to sponsor their web page but the realization came quickly when I looked at my own blog page and noticed that I can have ads displayed too.
Now, I'm facing this question of whether or not use AdSense in my blog page, as much as I'd like to get some free money I really think I shouldn't be using it on my blog page.
Now, why do I think I shouldn't use it on my blog page, well part of the reason is that I find them to be annoying and distracting. In some blogs these ads are all over the place that I feel like I literally have to scroll down several miles to read the blog and I certainly don't like doing it. The other perspective that I often think of is how as humans we have the ability to tune out certain things, like the ads in our email home page, tuning out noise, etc...so, eventually most people will tune out the parts of the blog page with these ads and what are the chances that they are going to click on these ads and generate revenue for you?

Why?

Seriously..I was frustrated no, actually the right word would be annoyed...to see some others blog or rather copy and paste stuff from various websites and call it their "Blog"...if it's that simple then I just thought why not try it!!
No actually, that's not the reason why I started this blog or why I'm going to abandon it either...I just started it to post some mediocre stuff that most others would like to call as thoughts, opinions, experience or whatever they choose to call it...
Even though I have nothing against people expressing their views or quoting someone or referring to some link..I would like to see some originality to the content that's being posted. Well, what is the point in copying and pasting stuff!! Often times I see people copying some news items on to their blog and expecting people to leave comments and that makes me wonder what kind of comments does this person expect...


Oh! wait, I'm still wondering...