April goals: Reading books – Really?

Once upon a time, I thought reading books is boring and people who read books are even more boring. Growing up, I read only text books (well.. I have had no choice).. aah let me just blame it on my school for not making reading habit mandatory in school curriculum. Yes, we have had library but they never lend any books nor we know that library is for gaining or improving knowledge on things that interest you.. or maybe I never knew that library is for borrowing books until I got into college.

Reading is fun and informative
Img Src: Google

I was surprised to see my class mates borrowing novels and finishing them over night and exchanging among group of reading buddies. I hung out with a girl who was an avid reader and she recommended I read “World around in 80 days”, that marks the beginning and the momentum died shortly after. After that I read a book here and a book there but nothing out of interest and dedicatedly. Only recently, ever since I moved to New York City, my commute time has drastically increased from 15 minutes to almost 3 hrs and started utilizing commute time for reading.  Although, my friends argue that audio is better than reading in a moving train, but I prefer reading over listening and this is the only time I can concentrate and I guess this has always been my habit all through child hood. I have read more in a moving vehicle than anywhere else. What’s your take?..Let’s call it personal preference over any logic.

Reading is fun, it makes you travel into a whole new dimension of world, a world of different means, possibilities, places, situations, thought process , creativity and most importantly they let us connect with characters, we feel how they feel, you cry when situation demands, you laugh it out when there is something funny.. reading book is as good as passively meeting wide variety of people and being there where the story takes place. In the process, I might have had connected with numerous people when they see me reading some novel of their interest and speak about characters, plot and interests in general.. yeah absolutely with strangers.

Just yesterday while I was too busy reading in a crowded bus, lady behind me strikes a conversation about how great the book is and suggest some more books of that genre.. right after I get off the bus there is another women who eaves dropped on my earlier conversation and obviously the topic shifts beyond books and found out she lives in the same neighborhood.. You would be surprised, at times..without our knowledge these small talks with strangers establishes long term associations and become friends for life.

On the other hand, after I read the book and if it has some story line that is worthwhile narrating to someone, my mother would be ultimate victim more often than my close buddies and she has no choice but to hear me out.

Last year, I was able to finish more than 12 books per year and this time I want to keep the momentum going and add more books to my list this year.

And, If you like reading books go ahead and suggest me some? Will you?  Just so you know..I am not biased to particular genre and open to take any inputs that you may have.

Health-Take one: April Goal – Run-a-mile-everyday

April Goal – Run-a-Mile-Everyday
(Pic Src: Google Images)

Spring’s here finally. Yes, I live in east coast and still struggling with winter and you know how difficult it is to wake up early morning in this cold windy weather. Despite, the fact that weather is slightly windy, thought to take some fun action than lamenting about it.

Inspired by a post on Facebook by a friend of mine.  She is subscribed to a group that speaks about setting goals of working out every day all through this month and sticking to them. They [read as: virtual group] keep changing their goals every month and what a fun way to work in team connecting virtually.

I found it very interesting. One of the goals last month was “Run a mile every single day – rain or shine”.  Although, I cannot re-locate that post, but here I am going to get behind the wheels and drive this mountain of laziness away.

Join me if anyone out there is interested in keeping up with this fun idea of this month. It doesn’t matter where you are located or even if you are traveling across the globe.

Yes, I am 5 days late but better late than never. Here we go!

1..2…3.. start.. go.. run!

Skills required for living in this era – all it takes is shift in ATTITUDE!

Abstractness everywhere
(Src: Google Images)

Is it a competition?

Or is it lack of opportunities per person?

Or is there a drastic shift in how things have been shaping up in last couple decades?

Whatever the reason may be, it sure is not the case for one to relax as soon as you are out of college and land in a job. I thought this was the case only with people working for private institutions but it has slowly spread to government employees as well.

I work for a private organization,  My job is reliant on the type of skill set I possess or for that matter it is in a way mandatory to have varied skill set ranging from people skills to technological skills to being able to take complete responsibility of the task. Initially when I started career, I resisted acquiring additional skills set after some point, and thought learning is a never ending process as I mentioned in my earlier blog post. But, to face exorbitant demands in this competitive world and sustain through it, one needs to be on top of the things.

A slight shift in attitude or perspective will take us long way in life and in career.  One needs to be always motivated and make it fun to acquire as much of diversified skill-set one can and never be afraid to take a different route when presented with opportunities along the way.

Sounds good in theory. Isn’t?

Honestly speaking, that does make sense in every way or Darwin’s law of evolution- survival of the fittest is true but in different sense. For instance, I take some fun-work-out classes here in NYC to get away from stress at work. This instructor is a dance choreographer and found a way to establish a career and brand in offering Cardio exercise in a fun-filled way. Being open to ideas have helped her immensely and made her stand out from the crowd.

So, do you think changing the attitude, shifting your focus and pursue your dreams..

or stay where you are and complain about the situations that gets you no-where..

Which of the above options would be useful?

What’s your take?

How did they do it?

Curiosity kills the cat! – some one rightly said it!

Have you ever looked into the aspects of how cars are manufactured on a large scale?

Beer, an alcoholic beverage is produced in large quantities?

Or how 80% of world’s almonds are produced from one place?

Having severe neck pain from past few days and having a crashed computer that does not let me work from home, and right in time a possible hurricane with winds gushing 40-60mph can only make up the most memorable challenging times. Well, without computer my days have extended much longer and nights lengthier.

Always gluing to computer not only spoiled my eyesight but my sitting and sleeping postures were distorted as well. There is a saturation point for everything and it makes us pause and correct ourselves up for our own benefits in long runs. With no computer but having access to cable TV made me watch Science Channel which I never knew existed that speaks topics of my interest to satiate my unbound curiosity.

Robotics or machinery always made me wonder about how well manual processes and time consuming difficult processes are all automated. This particular science channel hosts a show named “How do they do it” and describe the processes handled by machines.

For automobile industry, the robots are used in large scale from designing the engines, to preparing the car frame, to fixing it to become full fledged drivable car and later driven by human for it to pass all the tests to be available for general public. There were 1200 bolts that needs to be fixed for every engine of Subaru on their assembly line. All of it is done by robots. It surely an interesting one. Do watch. This is about “Subaru” an all wheel drive, designed and manufactured in Lafayette, Indiana, United States.

Assembly line in Subaru manufacturing plant

The other thing that I could not imagine that it can be done this way too is- managed production of almonds. As you all know, how important pollination among plants is to produce what they are supposed to? Plants do not move but yet need to be pollinated and who does that job?  You are right – bees! And there has been growing concern about reduction in bee population these days and thanks to technology that is causing this shift in nature. I shamelessly use it and I cannot seem to survive without it and so as many of us.

Managed Pollination

Interestingly, this almond farm in Sacramento, California, USA produces around 1.41 million tones of almonds and through managed pollination. They have planted male haploid plant (male gametophyte) and female gametophyte across each other for easy pollination. When these plants are blossomed, the bee hives are trucked and transported from different parts of United States and are then exposed out in the farm. These bees become active during day and starts pollinating. Resulting in heavy production of almonds as well as bitter honey, oh yeah, the almond honey tastes bitter. These almonds when they are ripe are shed by machines from trees and let it dry for 10 days before they are picked up. The machines pick up those almonds and are further processed until they are separated from shell. The almonds are then spot checked by Quality Assurance people and they pick if any bad almonds out of it. Then they are sent into different streams with variety of almond byproducts, for different flavors, varieties, packaged, sealed and supplied to local vendors across the United States. The bitter honey is used in preparation of beer and wax.

Almond Shedder

Spot Checking

This totally amazed me, never thought that technology is so rich and can be used this way?

And this beer factory in Belgium? They are the large recyclers of beer bottles and the machines handle approximately 40,000 yes forty thousand bottles per hour. They are cleaned; air dried, disinfected, filled with beer, air tight sealed and re-fermented for 3-4 weeks before they are shipped across 80 different countries. I am speaking about Chimay!  Everything is computerized, from mixing the proportions to testing the sugar levels and yeast in the beer preparation process. Although run by monastery, you will be surprised how well they use the technology to modernize the traditional processing of Beer Brewery. If not for their usage of technology, the profits are distributed to charities and support their monastic community.

Chimay Processing Plant
(All images: googled)

I am amazed at what they do. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as me sharing with you all.

Images source:  google.images.comInformation: from science channel, Wikipedia and some memory from my curious brain.

Frock (aka Dress)

If you are from India, you would address what you normally call a dress in united states as Frock. Right?

Frocks

I often use this word when I were to describe the dressing, a particular person wears or if I buy such clothing.  My cousin keeps correcting me for using that word to address a dress instead of Frock. I try hard to switch the gear and speak in the language and terminology these people understand and at times some words do come out. I guess  people understand what that word means depending on the context. But, frock is definitely an appropriate term (here is why) to address as an alternative to Dress and I stopped explaining or defending people and started speaking their language instead.

In United States,  every thing goes in reverse order as supposed to how rest of the world operates. It could be just hatred towards the Britishers that might have caused them to take different route. For instance, we are used to driving left in India, measure distance in kilo meters, liquids in liters, temperatures always in Centigrade and here I have to get used to speaking in terms of driving to right, miles, gallons, Fahrenheit and even turning on the electric switches other way. Such a level of difference?  But, United States is perhaps the only country in the entire world who have well organized and clean infrastructure for commuting. Not to mention, vast cultural differences.

Well, this post is not really to draw out the differences, but about this word “Frock” and I get caught in almost every conversation and forced to correct it and I just realized that I started correcting for few close friends/cousins as well.. why can’t I embrace and accept different ways of addressing when I know what it means? . Why do one have to be so civilized and so formal in conveying the same message but in different terms? I would like to think that there is no right and wrong for anything on the earth,  we do what majority of the people accept even if does not make any sense to your conscience.  On an easy note, I am glad to find out the word “frock” in the dictionary.

Impact of movies on our day-to-day lifestyle

Movies have profound impact on the people. Be it a dressing style, latest fashions, accessories, home interiors, social behavior, physical being, attitude and style of speaking, social change and more. The impression they make on people is something that lasts longer and gets engraved into our brains and shows up in our acts at some point or the other in our life.  Don’t you think so? For instance, size 0 is trendy thing to be in India and unfortunately staying that thin without feeding lead you to new health disorders.

Movies
(src. Google Images)

I have many of my cousins and friends, who act, speak and behave like a popular actress in the recent past movie they saw. Their humor is derived the way it has been portrayed in movies.  Even the definition of love is exactly same as the way they show in movies.  It is all so dramatic and at times makes no sense of what they do, why they do and drive you crazy listening to their slap stick comedy and non-stop blabbering.  It is hard for me to get used to that level of comedy to get entertained or to entertain them. I may have been there at one point of time in life, to speak like that idealized actress, to dress like them, to behave like them and may be think exactly as they do. Perhaps, it might be the age or the knowledge, I don’t know, but I feel funny about it when I look back and wonder what if I have had this knowledge then. Then, I would not have been ludicrous enough to laugh at myself looking back. What’s the fun if you are not silly in life?

Movies – what it takes to make one.
Src: Fledingfund.org

Love and family oriented drama are usually the main back-drop in majority of the Indian movies. Love is a universal language, people express differently at different places and everyone has their own definition of what it means.  Movies market about what love means so well that we probably never have any definition of our own. Such is an impact among youth and they fall into that trap without knowing what future holds or it might be just an infatuation as hormones make them act and react, especially when they are in teens. Some of them stay strong and some like ice melt away as sun shines.  And, in United States, the whole idea of love is fairly different. Indian movies on other hand now started embracing western culture (shocking previous generations), and trying to pace up with them.  Despite, where you reside movies do impact your outlook towards life in some way or other.

Speaking of which, one of my friend threw a party when a well renowned Bollywood film Director “Yash Chopra” died.  I wondered why anyone could party if someone dies specially who is a celebrity and no way related to him. When asked why, his reaction was that– there will not be any more lengthy family and love based dramatic movies that would speak volumes about how a girl is showered with so much of love in each of his movie.  He added – all the females watching his movies expect so much from their partners as much as guys expect from girls watching porn movies.  His basic point was, the drama they show in movies is so impractical and they should not be dramatizing and showing such level of fiction.

Well, it is so hard to convince people in this free-will world.  Irrespective of a movie convincing their plot, it is assured that you will dislike or pick up something or the other that your mind gets attracted to in that short span you spend watching them.

What do you think?

One Billion Rising – Across the globe on Feb 14th

Ever heard of this one – “One Billion Rising”?

I learned about it just yesterday when I ran into a girl who was spreading the word to join this event where one billion people would be dancing on 14th February across the globe to end the violence against females.

According to the the website or in general from overall statistics perspective, one in every 3 are bound be a victim of being raped or beaten up. This is an effort to save those victims or spread the awareness/educate people to avoid the possibility of this happening to any female in the world.

I signed up to be part of it and I urge everyone to be part of this revolution. Together we can achieve more!

To learn more about this visit One billion rising website

Below is the auto-generated email you would be provided to share with your connections to encourage them to participate.

Hey,

Today I became part of the revolution of women and men who will WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to violence against women and girls on 2.14.13.

ONE BILLION RISING is a global call to women and men across the planet to gather in their communities to dance and demand an end to violence against women and girls.

 Will you join me? Sign up here:

 http://onebillionrising.org/

 Right now, 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime.

 V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, refuses to watch as more than one billion women experience violence.

 ONE BILLION RISING is a promise that on February 14th, 2013, we will ensure that millions of women and men rise up around the world to say, “ENOUGH. The violence ends NOW.”

 http://onebillionrising.org/

 Thank you!

For New Yorkers – Here is the link (Click here) to find the event in your area.