Unpredictable life

I was startled to see a group of people with red bands on their heads, blocking the road at Lazimpat. I turned my bike - I had no choice. Upon reaching Kamaladi, there was another blockade and similarly at Durbar Marg. If you ask any pedestrian, "Don't know" is the first response you would hear the most. We are so much used to this life, we don't care anymore. "Used to" doesn't mean we look forward to but we adapt ourselves when such situation arises and curse them and then ignore. Then I reached Samakhusi and saw people burning tires. One guy, a frail looking, approached and asked me to give him a lift to Lazimpat. He explained that he walked all the way from Soyambhu ( a long way from Samakhusi) and he works in a hotel and that he's getting very late. At first I thought I should give him a lift, but I was waiting for a friend. "Sorry bro!". Also I feel that people are not to be trusted especially in such situations. That guy may not have any bad intention as such but I didn't feel secure; and I didn't have any good reason to give him a ride too. There may be hundreds or even thousands of people,who are directly or indirectly affected by such unpredictable situations. May god give consciousness to those who lack.

An attempt to organize life

It's been few weeks that I find myself cluttered. I have several things in my mind that I would like to do, write in papers or spiral copy, sometimes I would write in a text file in my computer. Often I would lose the paper or I would forget to turn the pages. Result is I would do nothing that I would consider productive, just surf the internet, listen to music, watch movies, send SMS, and time to sleep.



In an attempt to make my life a little organized, I bought a white board today. I have already written my todos, and I wait for the day to get them crossed one-by-one.



Can you read my todos?

Coincidently there's also a post "Why paper to-do lists work better?" at lifehacker, which says paper-todos lists are better than e-todos lists. I would say white boards even outrun the paper-todos, atleast for my case. There are pros-cons in each of those cases though.

Friendship: a new defintion

I never knew friendship may also be defined like this. A witty and offensive one. But please don't be offended. You will always be my friend - oh! not that one.





Courtesy: ComedyPlus

The Nagarkot suns

I reached Nagarkot just in time get a glimpse of the setting sun. The morning rising sun was almost blocked by dark clouds but finally managed to escape the evil.





Wavering Buddhist flags at the Nagarkot Tower







The setting sun







Waiting for the sun rise







Finally the beautiful rising sun

Dhulikhel vs Kathmandu

The differences between Dhulikhel and Kathmandu were based on my 3 days stay only, with the entire day being spent at the training hall. So you may expect some misjudgements. We went out only in the evening. But I have a habit of running in the morning so I happened to know a little more than other trainees.

Dhulikhel	Kathmandu
Clean city. You can feel the clean, fresh air.	Your nose gets irritated instantly.
Small, beautiful city.	Beautiful is myth now.
Less vehicles.	You won't see anything but vehicles and lots of them. You curse them everytime you are in the street.

If you think I am against Kathmandu, then you are wrong. I also found some positives in living in Kathmandu.

Dhulikhel	Kathmandu
Dogs are stupid. They can't differentiate jogging people from running thieves. I was chased at several places.	Dogs are intelligent. They are indifferent to running people. I am sure they can locate running thieves also.
Cyber cafes are almost nil. We didn't find one, though I was told there are two.	You will find cyber cafes almost evey corner.

First aid can save lives

I have never realized the importance of first aid training. Despite a little busy schedule at office, I gave my name for the training, organized by DPNet (Disaster Preparedness Network). The most exciting part was the training was to be held at Dhulikhel (30+ km from Kathmandu) for 3 days. It was like a vacation (a short one though) or a break from office. That vacation short-lived, when we were told that we had to give exams at the end of the training to get certified as a first-aider, besides we were also given home-works (I would say hotel-works).  We also were evaluated after each session, which made most of us nervous. Evaluations, exams were, are still frightening.

We stayed at the Dhulikhel Resort Hotel. The view from my room was spectacular. Couple of really good friends were made. Three days was not enough for us, passed like 3 seconds - with some exaggeration though.

I learned many things that I would never know, had I not take the training. There are so many basic things that we would normally ignore during wounds, cuts, shocks, burns... At least one person from each family should take this training - DPNet put forth its vision. Really even basic first aid can save lots of lives. The trainer told us a true story of a doctor, who lost his son because he didn't know basic first aid training. In the picnic, chicken bone got stuck in the boy's throat. The parents, both doctors, did their best to save their only son's life but in vain. Just few pats at the back would have helped the boy, there are also few other first aid techniques if that didn't work. That tragic story was presented just to show how important first aid training is. It can and has saved lives.

time 43:09:84 - oops! a time for repair

As I was preparing to go to the office this morning, I was shocked to see the time 43:09:84. It was working fine till last night. I remember pressing small buttons randomly, when the alarm went off. Crazy but good looking watch. And it's still not working :(



I hate to take things - anything - for repair. Once my mobile stopped working, I went for repair and that repair-guy charged 500 bucks for just formatting (i don't know how to then, though i know it now). I tried to bargain but that guy was so annoying that I left the said amount and later I got annoyed with myself - how could I?

my hilarious school project2: I was and am a normal guy

After posting my hilarious school project on 'unicorn', I received lots of comments via blogs, telephone, in person, "What kind of kid was you them?", "A serial killer?", "What were you thinking then?". Well i don't have any answer for any of your queries cause I don't remember what I was thinking then. But I have another humorous project on 'yeti', which was also submitted along with 'unicorn'. This report does show my good and friendly side. By good side I don't mean I also had hostile posture, but to prove that I was just completing my project and nothing to do with my what so ever. Enjoy :)

This villanous guy but a friend of mine, even posted in his blog.

How to get anything i want?

I asked for something

then I imagined

felt the passion

And I left



I knew that

the day would come

the day my wish

would come true



it's just a matter of asking

imagining and feeling it

and leaving the rest

for him to get it for me



finally i got it

the thing that i asked for

the thing i imagined

the thing i felt for



for this universe

never runs out

of my askings

for anything i want



-Anjesh



Note: This poem is inspired from the law of attraction, that law that says you attract anything you wish.

Nagarkot to Sundarijal Trip

7 hours of continuous walk from Nagarkot to Sundarijal, covering a distance of more than 24 km, was indubitably tiresome nonetheless fun. This is the longest hike I have walked so far. Aching back. Exhausted legs. Face covered with dust, touching ones face gives a feeling of sand papers. Cloths and shoes topped with dust. We didn't expect anything else; hike is supposed to be like this. Isn't it?



There were only two of us - Ujol dai and me. Others backed off at the last moment. It was good in some sense cause I don't think the group of more people would be able to cover that distance in time we took. We walked at fair speed, with very very minimal breaks, and that only during ascends. I couldn't imagine reaching home on the same day, had there been ladies. Thank god. The hill was exhaustively steep, I would say almost 60 degree or more. After walking for almost 4 hours, can you imagine climbing that hill? How about with bicycles? Well we met a couple pushing hard in that hill, and with bicycles. Crazy yet passionate people; I respect them.



We passed and walked through lots of villages on the way. I don't remember all of them. Kartike, Manichur, Jhule, Mul khadka... At one point on the way to Jhule, we almost got lost - had to turn back after walking for more than 20 minutes. There were few houses, scary ghostly looking, the environment was also little uncomfortable, with no people at sight. We thought we shouldn't take more chances at unknown places, so finally turned back.



Kartike Village, close to Nagarkot

There are schools built by donors. Kids, we met in village, mentioned about them, though we didn't see. There were two engineers from Netherlands, visiting the village that day, to lay the foundation for the new school - kids said that. Truly amazing and great people.



We saw few rhododendron trees. It seemed that many flowers had been picked by sheepherder, wood collector. We saw one tree filled with red rhododendron. We couldn't resist taking snaps there.



I was shocked to see foreigners walking alone. They must have been walked the distance before. There had been news of missing foreigners, in the past, in the hills of Nepal. It's very risky, without villages and people at a helping distance, should anything happened.



Finally we were pacified to hear the comforting sound of flowing water of Sundarijal - our walk was almost over. Eventually we reached the base at 5:40 PM, having started the walk at 10:30 AM from Nagarkot. A long walk indeed.



A kid carrying a baby goat

Nepal already committed to the earthhour

Today I received an email about the earth hour, the campaign to reduce green house emissions. We are to turn off our lights for one hour once a year, as a sign for our committment to reduce global warming, giving just one hour to our mother earth. That one earth hour is going to make a lots of difference to the climate change, if we really commit ourselves to earth hour.



The funny thing at Nepal is we are compelled to commit to the earth hour. Have you ever heard of load-shedding? Well this load-shedding campaign not only reduces green house emissons, but also reduces lots of our productivity. Because we are having 40 hours power off per week, a week or two back. Though the hours have reduced from last week onwards. Unfortunately Nepal doesn't contribute much to global warming, a small developing country, with not much industries like developed countries and yet are committing to earth hour - though not deliberately but out of necessity.



As far as the people, in general, are concerned, it's going to be a hell difficult task to make the crowd follow, unless we experience 'The Day after Tomorrow'. Rather than requesting people, how about compelling people. We can do anything if we just wish. Otherwise climate change, global warming doesn't make any difference to the lives of common people. Tsunami, earthquakes, tornados, sea-storms come and kill people; only those are affected and it's too late for them. For people living in New York, that doesn't make their single hair move. If tomorrow, San Francisco, Florida, Netherlands... gets submerged under water, as predicted by Al Gore in his award winning documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth', then I think people around the world will eventually start to act. I wonder if that start will be able to stop the end of the world. I just wish.

I almost got promoted by myself

At the end of every month, we have to sign an attendance form. I love this day; our bank account will encounter an increase. I know this attendance system is orthodox; the ICIMOD's way. I signed the form, gave it to the division secretary. Almost immediately I got a call from him "You will be punished!". He's not serious (most of the time) so I went to him with a smile to find out the cause. Well I had signed under progamme manager title rather than mine. And that was unintentional. Some colleagues had already started mocking me "That was a really quick and gigantic promotion". If only ...

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Honey from honeycomb

For the first time, today I tasted fresh honey from the fresh honeycomb, freshly taken from the bee home. The comb was cut into pieces, hexagonal beeswax holding honey intact. It was little difficult to put the tasty piece in your mouth, as you risk dropping sticky honey in your clothings. I did anyway. It was sweet thick and satisfying. First I didn't know whether to suck honey from the comb or put the entire piece into mouth. I just followed the crowd, put the piece in, sucked honey, chewed the wax and threw the wax out.

UML: developers tool or the Nepalese party

After been working in software development for more than two years, I thought I should now dip into UML tools, that would help me in designing softwares efficiently and effectively. I hope that with its use I would be in a better position to explain the application functionality clearly. In the past I had tried to learn UML in much details. But... No comments.



I must have downloaded an e-book "UML2 for Dummies" way back. I am not dummy. I wonder why "... for Dummies" are titled. If you have realized, "... for Dummies" are usually computer related books. Are the publishers/authors trying to be funny or trying to make fun of others. Anyways I was in the "Introducing UML" section - a beginning of the beginning.

[...]

The first thing you need to know is what the initials UML stand for. Don’t laugh—lots of people get it wrong, and nothing brands you as a neophyte faster. It’s not the Universal Modeling Language, as it doesn’t intend to model everything (for example, it’s not very good for modeling the stock market; otherwise we’d be rich by now). It’s also not the Unified Marxist-Leninists, a Nepalese Political party (though we hope you’ll never get that confused). It is the University of Massachusetts Lowell—but not in this context. UML really stands for the Unified Modeling Language.

[...]

I just want to show you the red-colored text above. Nepal is such an unknown small country - though people are generous enough to make it infamous now. But again I am happy to see Nepal in such unexpected ways.

my hilarious school project

I just happened to stumble upon some of my school reports. I was thrilled to see my work, dated almost 10 years back. Some of these are really funny that I couldn't resist laughing. I don't know what I was thinking then. I wondered whether my grade 8 English teacher (Chris Heaton, I still remember him) laughed at my piece or not. Take a look.

Time

Days come and go

Time never waits just so

Respect time of yours

Success arrives at your door



It doesn't hurt trying some poetry at times:)

My queue is the longest one. Oh God!

Have you ever realized that the queue which you belong to is the longest? Then you change the queue thinking that the other one will be shorter but in vain. You will get stuck in the longest one, no matter how much you try. I can't predict about you but it usually happens to me - like today.



I went to pay the monthly bill of telephone at Nepal Telecom counter. At first I just chose one of the two queues randomly. Standing, I counted the number of people in both the queues. It seemed that the one I belonged to had two more than the other one. And the woman at the front of my queue was discussing with the counter person. It's definitely going to take time, I thought for a moment and shifted to the seeminhly-shorter queue. Guess what happened? People who came after me paid their bill and went out one by one and I got stuck in the shorter-yet-longest queue. The person behind the counter was little slow and so was his computer. He would wait for 20 seconds before the bill gets printed. I didn't want to re-shift to the former because the next turn in that queue was mine. And my turn wouldn't come. I didn't count properly but probably 10 or more people who came after me overhauled me. I was so furious. But what? It was my decision to change to the shortest yet longest queue. That's why I hate this orthodox system. I like the queue management system, an electronic system that issues you a number at the time you arrive and your turn will come when that number appears in the scrolling LED screen, attached somewhere around the wall. First come first serve basis. I am really bad at locating the shortest queue. It has happened to me several times in the past. Yet it's happening. Why don't these big corporations implement such an efficient queue management system?

I did it again.

Well I ran to Budhanilkantha again and this time, ran back too, covering a total distance of 10 KM plus. That's a lot. The most amazing thing is I ran back without a single break and that again after devouring a litre of water at Budhanilkantha. At first I was about to take a vehicle back but decided to run some distance and then only ride vehicle. Surprisingly energy came out of nowhere and I felt energised, depleting full day energy ( I am still lethargic, it's night now, with pain in my back, legs).



Today I realized some similarities between being hanged and tiredness. When you are hanged, you give a damn to the people, you are a happy person, smiling, you don't hear or actually see people, you are not conscious about yourself. That's what exactly happened when you are very tired. That's how I felt today.



But there are more advantages of tiredness over being hanged though their immediate effects seem to similar.You won't get to experience horrible hangover after tiredness, which is obviously a good thing. And you won't be destroying your liver during tiredness as during hanged. You won't have to worry about your tummy during tiredness, instead you will be excited about your body. You don't have to worry about your foul breath.

Tiredness = hanged - worries = happy feeling



So the next time you really want to get hanged, just run 10KM plus and you won't regret. Don't believe me? Try it.

Practice! Practice!

After having done the demonstration part of the elibrary presentation at ICIMOD, people started to congratulate me. "It was great! You did a great job!" I was not much prepared and was quite sure that my portion of the presentation did not go well. I underestimated my part, thinking it was just a demo and I can speak anything that comes to my mind. But I prepared a rough outline of what I would be showing to the audiences. That list did come handy. But I felt that I could have done much better if I had practiced at least three or four times. English is not my native language so that also poses a little barrier. I really have to search for words at times. Practice! Practice! Practice! Boy that's what makes you perfect! I know this and yet I overlook.

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Wiki! Wiki!

The first time I was giving training on Wiki at ICIMOD, I was the most excited person. I was thinking of different ways to grab the audiences. I succeeded so far. But now the fourth training and sixth presentation on the same topic within 3 months didn't excite me much. I am always looking for challenges; it was then, but not anymore as it used to. But it's my responsibility, I had to do it, and faked some excitement. I should have done extra work on that to make it even more interesting. The difficult part of huge organization is one has to approve all these materials. Even though it's a learning process, sometimes I really don't want to go through all the hassles and just compromise with what I have, which is bad, I know. And yet, I did!



Long live wiki.

lost in the wind: the voices of the poor and powerless

On Saturday, a school girl was killed in a road mishap in Bungamati of Lalitpur district. She was standing near the bus door and thrown out of the speeding bus, twisted and rolled before getting under the wheels, killing the 16 year old instantly. The agitated crowd went to the police office in Jawalakhel, protesting against the bus driver. No conflict till now. Everything going as expected. One gets killed and people protesting, burning tyres, chanting slogans. Now it happened that that killer bus belonged to some close relatives of maoists. The potent maoists threatened the police that if they didn't suppress the crowd, they would bring their army. The powerless government police had to charge on the crowd. What do one make of so called democracy? Democracy? Not yours, it's theirs, the maoists!!

Questions.. What? Why? How?

Sometimes I question a lot. It just comes naturally like habit. People find it funny. If somebody says something, "why" is the first thing that comes out of me. Does that sound funny? I don't think so. But some people does. In Smriti's party (farewell or bday or probably both), my questions were being counted. And that was funny. This guy has almost developed the habit of counting my questions.



How does this sound? "Yeah! my hobby is to count his questions?". Isn't it funny? No? Well, who cares? ? ?...?

A Budhanilkantha mission accomplished

Finally I made my run to Budhanilkantha today, a 5km ( plus some meters) distance from my home. It took 31 minutes in total, and I ran for 24 minutes 49 seconds and walked the rest. I was expecting worse than that. I was underestimating myself. My next mission would be to run the whole distance without any walks in between and then my another would be to run back and forth home. Well I took a vehicle back home today. I could still run but again I decided "little by little". Now I am liking myself being tired. It's a great feeling - for me though. Upon reaching my destination I drank almost half-a-liter water and left the other half in the vehicle. I forgot it, I was enjoying my tiredness.



I was thinking of this mission few months back and had even put it on my new year resolutions list.

Ugh! Microsoft!

It's been several months that I have almost stopped using Microsoft MSN, except very occasionally. I don't know why I downloaded 8.1 Beta; it makes my computer slow like a hell. It eats lots of my memory. When will these MS people know about proper memory management. Maybe they are targetting high end computers with 1GB memory. And now that beta product wouldn't let me to login and instead asked to upgrade, and that by downloading. Ridiculous. I am complaining and yet using MS. Ugh!!
I don't know what went wrong with GAIM. It just kept crashing. Well downloading and reinstalling didn't help too. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

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"lazy work doesn't work! boy!!"

I applied to Acumen Fund Fellowship almost a month back and later got rejected as expected. There was a form to answer the difficult questions, the soul searching questions that make you take a dip inside yourself, search for the answers and get nothing (atleast for my part). Yeah the questions were really vague and I answered those in a matter of minutes on the last day. Can you imagine that? The result is "Better Luck next time! buddy". I still remember one question which says "Some examples of where the power of listening makes you proud?", a little distorted as I extracted from my memory. I had a really hard time to answer that question. Perhaps the time I gave for soul searching queries is far too less to deserve that prestigious fellowship.

I am one of 466 people that applied for the fellowship and one of the 400+ that got rejected. There is long procedure for selection. Had I been selected, I would never get to know that "lazy work doesn't work at all". Good for me.

The first time I got to know about Acumen Fund is few months back when I, for no any apparent reason, downloaded a TED presentation of Jacqueline Novogratz, the CEO and founder of Acumend Fund, an impressive lady who envisions of making poverty a history.

Mega-hit performance?... most says so

Friday, 23th February 2007
Finally the much awaited day arrived, the time to put our practice at stage, infront of an ICIMOD crowd. Yeah it was ICIMOD DG farewell party last Friday. Our almost two weeks of toil was about to be unveiled. And I was sick. I can't believe i got knocked off the day before (I think I mentioned about friend's party in my last blog). I slept at 3 in the morning the day before at my friend's home, woke up at 7:15, got back to my home, showed my fresh face (but not inside) to my mom, had a little food and off to office. I was hazed the entire day, my tummy was not feeling well. And an hour long meeting made me even more sick. I was pretty sure that I was going to do something nasty that would certainly make our performance terrible. I would never forgive myself for my would-be-terrible act. I told Prative-di, our gracious coordinator that I was not feeling well (but not the night-before act). She worked much hard to get us working, call us to reach the practice on time, encouraged us from time to time, even instructed us at different points (she herself is a dancer and giving newbies a chance). Really she is a fun to work with, a great person.

We reached the venue quite early, to have a little bit of practice. I was feeling awful, resting over anything of my reach, and worrying Prativa-di. The cultural show was to start at 6PM, it was somewhere around 3PM. The stage was ready, beautifully done; you should see the ornamented flowers in the stage. Superb.

Lots of speech. Finally the time. I was also to sing a nepali song "Musu musu hasi deu" in a group, just before the dance. I couldn't trust myself of my ability to stand the entire song. I dropped out. I knew I had some reserved energy, which I didn't want to lose before my performance. Finally on the way to stage. The girls went first, were dancing and finally boys turn. I saw the cheering audience, heart was hammering slightly, and yet made my moves, trying to show my energy; and I did feel revitalized. The song ended. It was a swift song that any of us (at stage) had ever heard before. All of us were unsatiated, even the audiences "Once more!Once more!". I didn't heard though at stage, but later people said to us. We were congratulated at every corners, as if we were... It was a mega-hit. I heard people talking. It was indeed a memorable day for all of us.


Dance Crew

bday wish again!

Again today I got a message from a good friend, wishing me belated bday with some apology. I had expected her call the same day. But no bad feelings.

In her last bday, she called me, I talked and hung up. No clue about her bday. And the next day, I got an SMS "I called you on my bday and you didn't even wish me." I didn't do that intentionally so no apologies. I am like this. So I don't feel bad if anybody forgets to wish me or doesn't wish me. I wonder if other people also think the same way. Oh no, not the girls, they are very very strict about these small (for me) things. If you look at my previous post (an email forward) on "Why men are happier than women", you will realize that some of these things actually hold true for majority of women. Believe me I am not against feminist or feminism, but just some of the facts that I face every often.

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An unintentional act of mine hurts me

We, the dancing boys, went to buy shirts for dance. We saw a shop at Thamel, went inside and found all the colors we were looking for, with some tolerance though, tried some bargaining, ok, bought them and off the shop. It doesn't sound shopping, or does it? Not for me, atleast. That's how boys are, as far as I am concerned. If the girls were to buy the same, how long would they take? Probably two days, provided 98% luck. If a girl had been with us, then it wouldn't have that easy (again my assumption).

On the way to home, I took a tempo. I totally forgot that I had no change at all, just a 1000 rupee note. I was pretty sure that the tempo driver, a female one, wouldn't have the change to give me Rs.992 back. I was feeling terrible. I didn't know what I was supposed to do or say. It would look like I intentionally carried that note not to pay at all. Fortunately I had folded 5 rupee note, hidden in my purse. I was thinking of getting off the tempo, get 10 rupee from the barber shop (my regular one) and give it to her. The tempo stopped a little far (50 m) from the shop. After getting off, I first apologized for having 1000 rupee note, asked her if she had change, "no" and then asked her if she would spare me few seconds to get some money from that shop. She looked unhappy and was about to go. I said I had 5 rupee, she took it "Give it next time" and drove away. Next time? There are hunderds of tempos, I wonder if I would ever met that tempo again.

I know how much hardships the laborers, here in Nepal and elsewhere, are going through, how much a mere (for some privileged us) 10 rupee would matter to them. That female driver would probably have a family to support. I really really felt bad, even though it was not deliberately done. I am really sorry for my unintentional act.

technorati tags:dance

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Bday!! Is it worth a celebration?

My eyes opened to the short vibrating music of SMS in the morning of 19 Feb. I unlocked my mobile, opened the message, "Happy birthday", I smiled and went back to sleep. It was from a friend, a good one and a girl. Girls are really good at remembering bdays. Believe me, I don't remember birthdays of any of my friends (please don't be offended, I am what I am). That was the only wish I got from Nepal. Then I got a greetings from Bulgaria, an e-pal and a girl again. I was not expecting that. But that really brought another happy smile. And then today I got another wish, though belated, from another friend studying in US, but this time a boy. To be true, I never find bday charming. Maybe that's the reason I don't remember anyone elses. But I do take guys for a treat. It's like a culture to us. Bday boy takes the group to some fancy restaurant and eat food. The group started with 8/9 of us during college and now 3 remains (most in US, one or two in Canada and one is Hetauda, a city of Nepal). We are very much against the gifts - another culture of us and a good one too. I wonder if a girl would like to join our group. I bet they will never.

I remember a beautiful saying about bday, "Oops! today I am one year closer to my death". Well I don't mean to be that pessimistic, but it's a beautiful saying. There's nothing to be happy about bday, expect those who love gifts. It's not that I don't love gifts, it's just that I am trying to follow our dying culture.

Is it really worth a celebration? Perhaps this should be one day that you do something good to the society, to the people, to the needy, if you are the one that is occupied in your daily work, if you have never looked beyond your friends circle. I am not saying we should not celebrate (not because I am being invited for another friend's bday party this thursday and I don't want to miss that). Celebrate it and also be this day be the day to take a deep look around our society.

I am really enjoying my writing. So guys, don't forget to invite me for parties.

Indeed! An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth is a very insightful documentary on Climate Change and its consequences. At some point I even pictured the shocking images of "Day after Tomorrow" when Al Gore explained that many areas of our planet earth (China, US, Netherlands...) will be submerged under water when a big chunk of Antartic ice will be melted, displacing hunderds of thousands of people and killing millions.

This is a really huge issue than terrorism. If the current world process continues, then our children will never get a chance to see this was-beautiful earth. There's a lot we can begin to solve this problem on our own, rather than waiting for some ignorant politicians to start.

Indeed Climate Change is a truth, an inconvenient one, that we would rather take it as a theory than a fact. But we must face this truth and act responsibly, or else ...

Dancing is almost complete

Our dancing preparation is still going. So far the song is almost complete. Steps.. yeah need a lots of practice. The song has been changed to "Changba oey Changba", a popular remix. I am really enjoying the practice, especially the laughs in between. We have also named one "robotech", just dances like a robot. We have two expatriates in our group, they are really fun to watch. Sometimes they just go awe (expecially when our dance teacher instructs in nepali), the look on their face is hilarious.

Nepali bloggers get together

I didn't realize a mail, inviting for a bloggers get-together, lying somewhere in the junk folder. Well it's an invitation tomorrow for nepali bloggers. Don't know what the discussion is about, maybe some experience sharing. Also searched through some blogs on previous gathering. Hope to attend tomorrow.

What writing is all about? Stephen King's "On Writing"

"[...] Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy. [...]"

My first impression on "On Writing" by Stephen King was how-to manual. I was wrong. I was captivated until the end and I am puzzled whether it's about writing or Stephen biography - autobiography, in this case. He has illustrated the procedures in a very story-like and I never felt that I was reading a book on Writing. In the past i had tried reading "how to write a damn good novel?". Got lost before I reached half. The matra to writing, stressed many times at many places by Stephen, is "Read a lot and Write a lot". Practice is the only thing if you really want to improve your writing. It took him years before he finally made his stand in the writing world.

He also suggested that interest should come first for writing. The quotes above, from the end of the book, explains it all.

Fwd: Water after Food PREVENTS HEART ATTACK

This may be useful to you. Nothing to lose...

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE



Heart Attacks and drinking warm water....



This is a very good article. Not only about the warm water after your

meal, but about heart attacks. This makes sense.. the Chinese and

Japanese drink hot tea with their meals...not cold water...maybe it is

time we adopt their drinking habit while eating!!!



Nothing to lose, everything to gain...



For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to

you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the

cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It

will slow down the digestion. Once this "sludge" reacts with the acid, it

will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid

food. It will line the intestine.

Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to

drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.



A serious note about heart attacks: You should know that not every

heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting. Be aware of

intense pain in the jaw line.



You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart

attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of

people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be

aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive...

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we can beat man-made global warming

"If 10% of americans don't use driers but instead sunlight, if people start to use quilt, blankets instead of central heating, if IPCC officials stops travelling in air several times, then we can somehow beat global warming. We, on the ground, should act first and not wait for the politicians to take action." That was one of the comments made on the floor during the discussion of Talk programme on "A story of Keeling Curve: Is global warming really man-made?" by Prof. Kyung-Ryul Kim from Korea.

Professor Kim said that it's almost scientifically proved that global warming is really man-made. This is emphasized by Keeling Curve, that shows that the concentration of CO2 is increasing enormously in the last 50 years, probably mostly due of human-activities.

If we start to take action on our own from today itself, it will definitely aid a lot to alleviate global warming to some extent. For that people need to be educated about the impact of climate change and global warming. I wonder what percentage of the world are aware of potential disaster, though it may take years, decades, centuries. The professor also mentioned that "The Day After Tomorrow" like scenario is probable but it was much exaggerated in that movie. Future generation will definitely experience climate change in real, if we don't act soon. The good thing is we can.

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dancing steps are difficult to remember

"Ok I got it. This is the way, isn't it?"

But again when music comes, everything gets chaos. You should be doing this, you will be doing something else. This is the second day, so it's normal that we forget the steps. Even girls are having hard time let alone boys.

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A memoir of the past or ... the present

The gruesome photos at phalano.com are touching, disturbing and reminder of the bitter past that Nepal and we have gone through. Unfortunately the past is still hanging around as the present. />




Children in Motipur of Kailali play in the ruins of a police station destroyed by Maoists.


Photo: Amrit Gurung




Children near Mugling inspect and army armoured vehicle that was bombed.


Photo: Narendra Shrestha




This passenger was among 36 killed when the Maoists bombed a bus in Madi, Chitwan.

Photo: Kumar Shrestha




A student protester at Tribhuban University in Kirtipur successfully saves a deputy inspector of Police.

Photo: Sundar Shrestha

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Testing from Post2Blog

Testing from Post2Blog

I just downloaded Post2Blog from http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ that allows to download the software that must be installed on the same day. Just giving a try to the blog posting desktop application.

food waster... us people

I was just observing party people laughing, talking, eating, drinking, some were sober, some were looking lonely, some were little drunk... It was a typical wedding party in Nepal. Today I didn't have much friends or familiar surrounding to engage in so I just thought of watching people. You wouldn't imagine how much food was wasted there. There were lots of snacks moving around by waiters, some were kept over table, some were being served in movable table. You would see people taking food and put the food aside and dismiss its existence. Rich citizens of poorest of the poor countries.

computer-phobics are fun to observe

"Oh i just know how to do the things I need with my computer. Last time I was using excel, doing this and that and blah..everything got big. It's so scary.[...]When I was told that i have to everything in Wiki, i really got nervous and feeble. Won't it take lots of time and effort than my current task?[...]"



This was the response (altered when translated from Nepali) from one of the staffs of ICIMOD. The expression on her face was something you should see. I was smiling, trying to calm her down "It's nothing! You don't have to worry" and blah, blah... But my trying-to-calm-her-down reply took a little time before she finally said, "You mean I don't have to worry".

"Yes!"



Computer phobia is real; many people, especially aged ones, are really afraid to do anything in computers besides their day-to-day work. I used to be the same, when I bought my first computer. I still remember the time when I formatted my entire hard-drive. You learn from mistakes. That's what I did. Now anything happens, I am not frightened. The worst thing that may happen is hardware crash, then I will buy a new one. Financial insecurity is also other reason for this phobia. Many people don't want to or won't be able to afford new parts if computer fails. But again with electronics gadgets, you can't rely on the fact that everything will be fine if you don't mess with them. They are not to be trusted. A small electric spike may damage your hard drive. Another aspect of computer phobia is lack of support. If you can get support anytime you need, then you will free yourself from the anxiety of "what will happen if i do this?". If you can support yourself, then that's the perfect way of unchaining oneself from computer phobia. It's really fun to see computer-phobic person. No offence please!

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Dancing at ICIMOD

We are preparing a dance for the farewell of our leaving DG, Gabriel. Today's the first day of practice and we have only 2 weeks to go. Managing the time in our busy schedule is not that easy but it's fun. Half-an-hour during lunch time is allocated so far for the practice but today it was almost a laughing session. Boys are really fun to watch, including me; our inflexible, stiff body needs the simplest of the simple steps and yet we find it hard to grasp those. It's going to be fun though.

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another good friend is leaving :(

I never felt bad and terrible like today upon hearing the news of departure of another good and close friend. Many of my friends have left to US and very few are left in Nepal. I am shocked to know that he is leaving tomorrow itself. I don't know much details right now, but he's going to another city.

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Aren't we moving to dark age?

Well i wonder how many from the west would have heard of load-shedding, an inseparable part of our daily lives. These days we are undergoing 3 hours load-shedding everyday. The light has just gone off now in my neighbourhood. The light will show up after 3 hours (at 1AM in the morning). Now this situation will be getting more worse in the coming days, there are talks going on around that there will be 6 hours electricity cutoff daily. Experts are predicting even worst situation in the future.

The major credit for the present situation goes to maoists, who have destroyed numerous infrastructures to come to the mainstream for the political change in Nepal. So far they are successful but all of us are paying huge price. Now agitated Terai is just around the corner. Nepal still seems to be far from the political stability, instead approaching dark age. May gods of Nepal help Nepal.

My Accomplishments in January 2007

These are some of the achievements that I could remember of

1. Coordinated hands-on training on Wiki at ICIMOD on 3/4/11 Jan 2007
2. Ran 10 days in the morning (achievement so far)
1. Need to increase this number
3. Posted 31 in total in 3 blogs
1. I need to blog more on my talkict blog
4. Completed and implemented Document Flow Tracker at ICIMOD
5. E-library application is 80% complete
6. Developed a small script for Html Table to Wiki converter in python
7. Understood the sphider search engine and customizing it for my need (around 70% done)
8. Learned Jquery framework for Javascript and Code Igniter php framework
9. Hacked Mediawiki for versatile page by page access control (based on page-by-page access)
10. Hike to Lakhurebhangyang

Time flies. We don't remember everything we do. Generating a list, as above, makes sense of my might-have-wasted time. Now I can sit back and enjoy thinking 'I have achieved something!'. This list definitely needs to increase. One thing I am missing here is reading books. Hope to have at least two books in my next month achievements list.

what to do when you don't feel doing anything?

What do you do when you don't feel like doing anything? and at office? Well right now I am going through the similar situation and don't know what should I do. There's work to be done. And yet I am writing to you, incase you have anything interesting to suggest for the next time. I think it's maybe because of fatigue due to running in the morning after a long break or because of hot air. Possibly that. Ok i found the reason. Now what?

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A memorable hike to Lakhurebhangyang

The hike to Lakhurebhangyang (Jan 27) was definitely a memorable day to all of us. Our fatigue was none compared to the beautiful scenes on the way. I wasn't tired anyway.
The three cities of Kathmandu valley was supposed to be seen from the top of Lakhurebhangyang, but the panorama was blurred. Fog or pollution?? Didn't try to find that out. That was the second time for few of us. But still we were captivated by the soothing views on the way.
The laugh, talks, food, views, mock... are still fresh in my mind. Fresh! I am sure some of my friends would laugh at me right now.

well the "not supposed to happen" happened :))

Well it just happened the "not supposed to be happened thing". Quite a funny message by the fav. Google in the Google Reader. Just thought of showing to you ;)

I crossed the century but in blogging

This is my 101th blog. Well I hope to cross double century by the next year. Another new year resolution :) I am just thinking that I am going to write about my achievements (anything i remember and that i take as an achievement... you will see tomorrow) at the end of every month... my resolutions seem to be increasing. Good for me. Wish me luck!!

Source code formatter for blogs

I found the source-code formatter to format codes for posting in my just-tech blog. It was quite useful because I was having the problem of managing the structure of codes, when posting it in blog. I wish to have color formatting features for codes in blogspot. I am going to need this quite often.

Why you should learn programming: use of regex

Suppose your boss gives you a list of names, given below, and asks you to remove the numbers. Hapless you have no other way than to go to each line and delete the number. If you have little idea of programming, you would never think that way. You will immediately try to find the least time consuming way. You can write a program to do the job for you. I won't recommend that. But if there are hunderds of such files that need to be sorted out, then you should definitely embrace programming. However for the task given below, there's another tool that will really make your life a happy life. Regular expressions. Sometimes even the good programmer are not aware of such tools. These tools are also available in almost all high level languages.

Most text editors also come with regular expression functionality. Oh don't menion about useless Ms Notepad. I use notepad++, however there are plenty of other free editors lying around the net.

It just takes a second to extract the names from the list below. I mean a second for me and some of you. Because I already know a bit of regular expression. It's a really confusing at the beginning and you don't have to be a programmer to understand regular expression, though programming idea definitely helps.

I am assuming you are not using notepad. If you are, then change it right away.

1 FirstA LastA
2 FirstB LastB
3 FirstC LastC
...
...
100 FirstAA LastAA
...
...
1000 FirstAAA LastAAA
1001 FirstAAB LastAAB
...

The list goes on

The presentation below shows some regular expressions to manipulate the list of 1000 rows, but definitely not a comprehensive one to master regular expressions. Just know that there's also regular expression around the corner, should you need to do some work expeditiously.

goggle gets right when you search for me...

Do you ever wonder what google gives when you search for your name? Well I really wanted months back to give pages relevant to myself when being searched for anjesh. Guess what? Now google gives the real me for anjesh, in the first place. There are other anjesh also.
Try searching yourself. It's very unlikely that you will get your own results. If you are curious about what I did for that, then the answer is regular blogging. I think google is curious about updated pages.

Finally html-table to wiki get going... developer's satisfaction

Every developer knows the satisfaction of having something accomplished. Like today I was able to convert html-table to wiki format. I will post the python code in my tech blog soon. Though it's a simple code but it's usage is tremendously high. I found few sites that does table conversion from html to wiki, but they preserve the attributes of rows and columns of table, which I don't need + few other issues. So had to do on my own, also a test of knowledge of Python. Python is a one of the must-know languages.



We at ICIMOD are moving intranet contents to Wiki. We have also hired an intern to do the job. This program is just to make his job a little easy. I understand the pain of creating tables in Wiki, especially when it's two pages long :-(

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Track flying-time and elude frustration

Well the first month of this not-anymore-new-year is almost coming to an end. When I look back in January, it seems like I have done nothing at all. Frustration!! Well there are some productive things that I think I might have done but don't remember it clearly. Time flies and no body can control time. The only way to control time is to use it properly. To justify the proper use of our time, we should log our tasks and see at the end of month what we achieve. Easy to say, hard to do. Well I haven't done that so far, but it seems quite promising. That log will give us a glimpse of our achievements over the last month. We can develop strategy accordingly and also it won't let us to frustrate over flying time, unless you happen to waste time doing nothing.

Video editing is a breeze!!

Last night I was really busy trying to convert mobile video format .gp3 to other format recognizable by Moviemaker and do a little editing, slicing, adding titles. Finally I was able to convert .gp3 to .avi using mobile 3gp converter, the best part is it's freeware. Editing in Moviemaker is a breeze. Just took 10 minutes to edit the video file that you may see below.

Are we helpless or we just don't care?

Two boys, possibly at 15,16 or even less, kicked, thrashed the footpath fence with exertion. Passers-by gave a look. Nobody dared to say anything to those boys. Finally the boys were able to take one bar out of the fence. I was also little frightened while taking the shot with my mobile. I know nobody would come to help me if they snatched my mobile. I would have been helpless. There were police, traffics but just enjoying the scenes; perhaps they had no other choice. I couldn't shot the car being shattered in front of police.

People were saying that they have never seen those hooligans, despite the fact that they have been living in this neighborhood since 30/40 years. So true. When it comes to hooliganism, it appears as if they are being sent from the Satan. Who dares to challenge with the Satan? Just watch, enjoy, talk, and say "Nepal is always like this!" Perhaps the scenario would have changed, should only 100 people from the neighborhood stood against such act. I wait for the day.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/jan/jan21/news09.php

(Liverpool vs Chelsea) vs cornered people

I am watching Livelpool vs Chelsea, but with no real intension of watching. I was thrilled to see the two goals by liverpool within the first 20 minutes. Aren't we very privileged? We are indeed and we take many things for granted. And then we have preferences. I do have lots of friends who know about the transfer of player in real time and have opinions on the performance of the teams. I was never bound to sports like an addict. I do watch games but I watch for fun. Some of my friends say that futbol is kindof religion for them. In between i wonder how many of them actually think about cornered people, just a curiosity. Maybe I am talking about the cornered people because I watched them yesterday and their pain still hanging in my mind. I wait for the day when these people would get the same value as Liverpool vs Chelsea.

"We corner People" is cornered and will be always

Everyone almost choked when a person ,from Helvetas, was reading a letter to a family in a Tamang village of Rasuwa District, so called the corner of the country, in a documentary "We corner people" by Kesang Tseten. That person even couldn't complete the letter and apologized. That particular scene showed the hardships living through by exploited Nepalese in Arab countries. At the end, everyone of us at ICIMOD conference hall was distressed, it was felt in the silence among people leaving the hall towards the party; everyone forgot what they have just seen and felt through. After having dinner, some started to dance and "We corner people" was definitely cornered. I really wish we could do something.

Why do people, or better you, smoke?

For fun, show-off, peer pressure, environment, loneliness, foul breath... or to die first, that's for sure whether you like it or not.

A friend of mine once explained to me that he first started to smoke for show-off; young people often feel superior when they do something they are not supposed to do. It doesn't take time for continuous show-off to turn into habit and finally addiction. I also asked another friend of mine, a girl, that whether she is addicted. She proudly said no. I asked her again that if she could refrain herself from smoking for even a day. Surprised. 'wow.. I haven't thought of that'. That was funny.



We all know that smoking is injurious to health and yet we do (excluding me and some of you). Sometimes people would make fun of themselves saying that "Yeh.. I have left smoking", after a little pause, "since 2 hours." That clearly shows how much will power that we, humans, lack; there are and will be exceptions though.



I wonder whether these smokers are also contributing to the global warming - risking our planet. As long as they are risking their own lives, let them enjoy. When it comes to other non-smokers' lives, they should be stopped. But how? Will government ever stop high-income generating cigarette industry? But at least they should be reminded that 'Smoking is not just injurious to their health but the entire planet.' But again who cares. Humans! Social yet selfish animals!!!

my nokia mobile broke again....

I was installing few applications in my nokia 6600 from http://www.crazy4mobilez.com. Fortunately I also installed "backup contacts". I was also testing bluetooth connector for pc and luckily happened to transfer the backed-up contact file. Otherwise I would have lost the contacts again like couple of months back. Suddenly one application caused mobile to collapse. I guess the mobile c drive got corrupted. I was not able to view contacts or do anything. The last time, the same thing happened, restarting helped. This time, nothing helped at all. A message came at the same time and couldn't do anything to view that message. It was on mobile memory. Now i have changed the settings to store the messages in MMS card. Finally I had to format the mobile losing all the data on the mobile phone. This time I have my contacts in my pc so didn't worry much. You wouldn't believe that the last time, my mobile broke, I paid Rs 500 to fix it. That guy who fixed my mobile did nothing more than formatting it. I still hate that guy. But again I got an opportunity to know about formatting the mobile myself and freed myself from the anxiety of what would happen if i did this. Now I am not afraid to do anything stupid with my mobile.

lost in the city

Well it sounds funny that I got lost today in the morning in the puzzling alleys of this city. I woke up little late so decided not to run far. But something came up and I decided to run inside the city. On reaching Bishalnagar, I wanted to take another route which I have never been to. I happened to circle the same area thrice, everytime with different routes. Finally I went back from where I came and took known route back to home. I got so so tired :-<

test:blogging from flock

This following text was written 2 days back. I couldn't blog from flock nor could I log-in to my blog through flock. Finally i am able to log-in now.

I just installed flock browser, which is just another fork of mozilla base code, or you may say a brother of firefox. Flock already comes with blog, image posting features. I am just trying to test blogging from flock. Hope this will get to my blog.

Firefox needs a separate extension for this feature, which is embedded in flock core. Also I noticed that this is comparatively fast than firefox2.0. Sometimes typing in the address bar of firefox lags almost 5 seconds before appearing. I don't know if only i am facing this problem. Anyways flock seems to be a good competitor to firefox: my opinion!!

Blogged with Flock

Creative CV: worth watching it

Below is the screenshot image of musical CV in flash - very creative, funny, interesting, sounds good...

The forward mail contains the following message.... (believe at your own risk but who cares :)

This guy posted his resume musically on the net and he really got hired by Microsoft graphics team. This is amazing stuff.....The person who prepared this CV received job offers from 180 companies; More than 1,000,000 ppl have viewed this CV...

http://www.paradoxware.com/alstudio/cv/en.htm

lesson learned...

Today I had a presentation on Wiki, followed by hands-on training for the ICIMOD staffs. This was the third one, the previous two were carried out last week. During the presentation, the images of Wiki site was not quite clear, because of some problem in projector. I was apologizing again and again every time images appeared in the slides. I realized that I shouldn't repeat apology and yet I did. Later a veteran senior officer commented on this particular repetition of mine. He pointed that I should have dropped that image, and only one apology was enough. I will make sure that such action doesn't repeat later. The audience would definitely get bored to hear the same thing again and again. A lesson learned...

keep yourself up-to-date is the most accessible yet hard to realize in this information age

Today Dr. Gabriel Campbell, ICIMOD DG, gave a short presentation in the beginning of the workshop on ICIMOD next strategic plans. Almost every speaker appreciated Gabriel's insightful ideas. I won't elaborate all here. But the one of the many he stressed and the one I already know and yet procrastinate is "to keep up-to-date ourselves in which we work". That's very important if we want to keep our competitive. For that we have to read a lot. I have lots of books to be read, and all of them in ebook version. It's easy and most importantly free to download. I download everything that I perceive as a little interesting. In the back of my head, I tag "read this" note but again with time, note starts to fade, until I see the ebook again later.

There's never been a time in history when keeping up-to-date is as easy as in this information and internet age. Information at our fingertips. Can we imagine going through the library for new publications, waiting for magazines to arrive in the markets. I can't! But the amount of information now is so huge that we tend to get lost in its vastness, making the accessible hard to realize. At least for me!!

I am running now...

Well it's been two days since new year that I started running in the morning. Finally! And I don't want to or probably won't miss throughout this year. I know it's hard just for a minute to wake up. Once I am out of bed, I am fresh for the entire day. But the problem is even the dark morning (it's quite dark quarter past six in the morning in this season - winter) is not fresh as I am running besides the road. Though vehicles are quite less in number in morning, the evening smoke still seem to be in air. There is not any appropriate place or park to run. There's one small park, where I go for stretch-up after running. I guess it should be stretch-down. The park is so small that I can cover it in 10 minutes or less, walking. It is quite mono walking round and round.



I am planning to run to Budhanilkantha in Saturday. I don't know how long will it take, probably more than an hour from my place. This may also be counted as one of my resolutions. Hope to fulfill it soon...

gmail address: one to many

If you have created a gmail account, you are blessed with hundreds or even more email addresses. How many you want?

I already know one trick of generating many gmail addresses from one. Thanks to lifehacker. If your gmail address is username@gmail.com, then username+anyword@gmail.com is also yours. I used this whenever I subscribed to any sites. This way I will know if my email address is being used for spamming. Some sites don't allow plus (+) in the email address and I am compelled to use username@gmail.com. But not anymore.

Today I happened to know another trick. Use dot anywhere in your gmail address and it works. I just tried to myself. I always resented having created my gmail address as firstnamelastname@gmail.com, I used to miss dot between firstname and lastname as it is getting more and more standardized. Thanks to my friend who forwarded this information. Now I can have my email address as firstname.lastname@gmail.com. Thanks to fore-thinking attitude of google.

Google help center has the info on same.

Now tell me how many emails address you want.
username@gmail.com
username+a@gmail.com
username+b@gmail.com
....
user.name@gmail.com
user.na.me@gmail.com
...
this will never end. Enjoy!!

Why you shouldn't pursue MBA?

This is just an irrational reason for why you shouldn't pursue MBA. I suppose MBAs don't act or speak like such. Forget it...just a forward.

An MBAgraduate and an Engineer go on a camping trip, set up their tent, and fall asleep. Some hours later, the Engineer wakes his MBA friend. "Look up at the sky and tell me what you see."



The MBA replies, "I see millions of stars."



The Engineer asks "What does that tell you?"



The MBA ponders for a minute:



"Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies



and potentially billions of planets.



Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo.



Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three.



Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant.



Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.



What does it tell you?"



The Engineer friend is silent for a moment, and then speaks.



"Practically...Someone has stolen our tent".

A new morning...

A nice forward...

When the door of happiness closes, another opens.

But often times we look so long at the closed door.

That we don't see the one,

which has been opened for us.





If u learn to translate every event of ur life into a POSITIVE one,



U'll stop being a prisoner of ur past n become the



ARCHITECT of ur future…!!!

A week after new year... my new resolution????

It's been a week since the year 2007 has begun. One of my new year resolutions is to blog daily and i am writing to remind myself. Another is to run in the morning daily.. guess what? I have been sleeping since new year. Am I really weak? Or resolutions are just the medium to make us think feeble. Unfortunately I hadn't drafted my resolutions on paper yet... see my zeal? Just in my mind... Anyways it's never too late to start anything worthwhile. Resolutions don't generally work unless you can see them in paper. One of my major resolutions should be to first write one.

when will you grow up, people?

Yesterday I was on the way to Baneshwor for a little party by my friends, going to US for their study. Don't ask how many of my classmates are here in Nepal. And I wasn't saying grow up to my friends.

On the half way to the Baneshwor, it was total jam. Vehicles going up totally occupied the entire road. I was thinking what caused that - some rally, demostrations.... I was on bike. The beauty is you can tweak around to leave the jam behind. I followed other bikers, driving in the footpath. On the other side of the jam, the vehicles coming down occupied the entire street. It was disturbing to see that. Nothing was happening at all. Just hurrying people trying to get first and everyone got stuck. The major culprits are the microbus, tempo and minibus drivers, who are always in a hurry, turning, moving, crossing others way without any signal. When will these people grow up. Recently I posted a powerpoint presentation on why developing are always left behind. This attitude of people won't let the country move forward. Not just government, we are equally responsible for the present condition of our country.

my opinion: Writing is not difficult when you are yourself.

Few days back I posed a question "Is writing difficult?". I have been writing 2/3 blogs per day and realized that "no. writing is not difficult when you just let yourself flow". One thing is if you keep on writing, the ideas just flow. But if you stop it, the same happens with your free-flowing ideas. When I used to be regular for 3 months 3 months back, I still remember how enthusiast I had become about writing. And everywhere I go, everything i do, i would think "well i can blog this." I was so conscious about my whereabouts, my whatdoings? But i still haven't developed a habit of jotting down notes as soon as it comes to my mind, which experts would consider the must-have, must-develop habit of wanna-be-writers and ofcourse all sort of writers. I was thinking about blogging on "writing is not difficult" blog in the morning. I am not trying to boast about my memory but i am trying to say that I am not a writer yet. I need to develop jotting-ideas habit.

So I will keep blogging everything that comes to my mind. Don't care about my target audiences. Infact I haven't thought about them yet, though blogging experts would say to must set target audiences to start blogging to give you a purpose of blogging. As I have said before "my purpose for now is to develop a habit of smooth writing." and forget about others. I am sorry to you (reader) but I am really bad at writing so blogging is just a medium to me.

At informal WDR2007 presentation

I just happened to be in an informal presentation on World Development Report (wdr) 2007 by Deepti Kharurel of AYON (Association of Youth Organization Network) at Sap-Nepal. Though I haven't read the entire book, I had downloaded it to my computer and skimmed through the chapters and still remember that there are 1.3 billion youths aged 12-24 in the world.



I enjoyed my time there at the presentation. It was sort of raising awareness among youths, involved in youth organizations, since WDR07 primarily focused on youths. I liked the documentary, I didn't know that wdr is also accompanied by documentary when I downloaded it. I had skimmed though the book then and liked the concept of giving second chances to the youth. There were three main concepts regarding youths: opportunity to the youths, increasing capability among the youths and providing them second chance. I also had the pleasure to see the hard-copy of the WDR, colorful, smooth pages, extravagant looking. I wonder how much a piece of book would cost. That would have been enough for a month food for a family in Africa (just my guess!). Someone raised a pretty rational query "Ok now we know some facts about world, poverty, youths. Now what are we going to do? And can we [the youths] do?".



During the tea break, I was listening to some youths talking on politics, why many youths are falling into the trap of politics. Some of them were suggesting the fact that it was because of insecurity. Many still believe that if you follow somw party leader, you will have a secure future. In fact there are many cases to support this fact. One was also giving an example of a competitive, qualified friend applying for some decent post, then another person, affiliated to some party, also applied to the same post. The result is affiliation proved beneficial. The one, who cited this example, later mocked his friend saying, "you were busy preparing yourself for the interview, your competitor must be busy calling everyone he knows". This is very fatal to everyone of us. Maybe also one of the reasons why people call politics a dirty game. I was illuminated with several interesting ideas from the youths.



PS: I am writing this at 4:30PM in "Performancing Editor". I will post it at night after my night-surfable internet resumes. Well just trying to show my gratitude to the "Performancing Team".

me: controlled by the environment?

Do you ever feel sagged, drooped when someone told you about interesting things happened to them? Most of the time, I feel that how come I did not do that when people starts to say about their interesting trips and so. I just got a message from a friend that they went for bungy jump yesterday. I am feeling really bad that I have not been to that thrilling jump. I know there's no need to feel bad or sagged. But still we are very prone to being control by the external environment than by our own judgement. I will not let that happen to me. This is the time when people like Brian Tracy, Steve Pavlina come to aid. You listen/read their energetic audios, articles and you will feel revived.

Why difficult to discipline oneself?

Disciplining oneself is certainly the hardest thing to do. We are always doing things that we are not supposed to do or should not do. And we don't feel like doing things that ought to be done. I like the Steven Covey's concept of categorizing our tasks into urgent or/and important and work accordingly. I was discussing the same thing with my friend and he mocked 'with the time in categorizing your tasks, you would be able to complete all your tasks.' That was funny.



The point is I have been really lazy. With my lots of tasks piling up, I am confused with what about of time to give to those and end up with doing other things besides the thing I should be doing.

A funny joke to put smile in your face

ONE NIGHT 4 MBA STUDENTS WERE PLAYING TILL LATE NIGHT AND DIDN'T STUDY FOR THE TEST WHICH WAS SCHEDULED FOR THE NEXT DAY.IN THE MORNING THEY THOUGHT OF A PLAN. THEY MADE THEMSELVES LOOK AS DIRTY AND WEIRD AS THEY COULD WITH GREASE AND DIRT. THEY THEN WENT UP TO THE DEAN AND SAID THAT THEY HAD GONE OUT TO A WEDDING LAST NIGHT AND ON THEIR RETURN THE TYRE OF THEIR CAR BURST AND THEY HAD TO PUSH THE CAR ALL THE WAY BACK AND THAT THEY WERE IN NO CONDITION TO APPEAR FOR THE TEST.



SO THE DEAN SAID THEY CAN HAVE THE RETEST AFTER 3 DAYS.THEY SAID THEY WILL BE READY BY THAT TIME. ON THE THIRD DAY THEY APPEARED BEFORE THE DEAN.THE DEAN SAID THAT THIS WAS A SPECIAL CONDITION TEST. ALL FOUR WERE REQUIRED TO SIT IN SEPARATE CLASSROOMS FOR THE TEST. THEY ALL AGREED AS THEY HAD PREPARED WELL IN THE LAST THREE DAYS. />

THE TEST CONSISTED OF 2 QUESTIONS WITH TOTAL OF 100 MARKS.



Q.1. YOUR NAME ............ ......... ............... .......( 2 MARKS )

Q.2. WHICH TYRE GOT BURST ? ............ ....( 98 MARKS )



THE ANSWERS OF THE 4 STUDENTS FOR QUESTION # 2 WERE:



Student 1) Front Left

Student 2) Front Right

Student 3) Back Left

Student 4) Back Right



SO BEWARE! THERE'S ALWAYS A PERSON WHO IS SMARTER THAN YOU AROUND.....!

Again "performancing" at a glance...

Well I installed "Performancing" add-on to my firefox and posted a test post yesterday. You may have noticed "powered by performancing firefox" at the bottom of the post. I thought now I have edit it online to remove that powered tag. I wouldn't want to have it in all of my posts. Fortunately there's an option in settings from where you can choose not to insert it. I hope this time, that "powered by" tag won't appear (i have disabled it).



Someother things that I liked about "Performancing"

You are writing some content and you are maintaining multiple blogs. If you are using browser for blogging, you have to go to the dashboard and choose "create post" for the right blog. People in developing countries would understand how difficult and tardy life is in the internet world. I am delighted to say that "Performancing" definitely makes our life easy to certain extent. You write a post and choose the blog from the sidebar where you would want to have your blog posted. Just a click and everything happens in the background.



Other thing I liked is "History" feature. Choose a blog from the list and click history, 10 latest posts are retrieved from online to your desktop. Choose the one you want to edit and click "Publish as Edit" to edit that post. Life is certainly getting easy. Sometimes I would write online and wouldn't feel like writing after sometime, then I would save it as a draft, so that I would return in future to complete that post. The result is I would totally forget about it and it would remain as draft for ever. "Performancing" wouldn't let that continue in future, now I have that draft in my desktop and complete in my leisure time. Thanks Performancing.



I would love to see more HTML tag options in editor toolbar. Since "performancing" is a sort of desktop utility, it wouldn't be difficult to add more features in the toolbar. By the way, there are even add-ons to the "performancing" add-on. It's funny though that there are add-ons to the add-on. Add-ons/plugins/extensions are the must-think-and-have feature in any application, be it web or desktop. That will really aid the application to extend on and on, re-usability also increases.



I thought inserting image would also be comfortable. "Error: Error contacting server..." welcomes me. I tried with the browser, the image gets uploaded without a question. Well there was a "I agree" checkbox, maybe because beta tag was removed from blogger.com. But still insert image from performancing would not work. I used the url of uploaded image from browser. It worked (see my pic?) . Why uploading from performancing editor not working? A bug?





I think I just found another flaw. As I was typing this post, I have to use "Save as Note" and everytime it asks "Overwrite the note?". That was quite disturbing. I would love to have the option to turn that off. And I almost lost 2 paragraphs. I was writing this post and just happened to browse the posts in the history list. When I came back to the Notes, there was not 2 paragraphs. I got mad. I forget to click "save as note". How insensible is this system to ignore changes when I move to other sections. It should remind me to save the content when I moved around other options. Fortunately undo/redo (Ctrl-Z/Ctrl-Y) worked and I got my content back. That was really scary. This issue should be addressed asap. People will get mad if the content gets lost. Auto-save feature would be really appreciated.

Testing from "Performancing" add-on for firefox

I just installed Performancing Add-on for firefox. According to the site,

Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted text from the page you happen to be browsing, and take notes as well as post to your blog.[...]

I was actually looking for similar kind of tool to ease in posting blogs. In this you can also create multiple blog accounts, and choose the one in which you want to post your blog. I have already created 3 accounts in Performance. I hope it will be easy to post regularly.



There's also "Save as note" button, that saves to your desktop. I guess it means I can write offline at any time I want and post it later. Otherwise I used to write in a notepad and save it in my desktop. That's cool. Well this still needs to be explored. By the way this is just a test for Performance add-on. I hope this will appear in my cupboard blog. Ok..publishing now....

powered by performancing firefox

men are happier than women...are they?

Well I love getting insightful forwards. This one is insightful because i get to know so many things that we, men, have advantage over women that we are taking as granted. Perhaps we should think about these things more and be happy :-) Well some points may not apply to all but still we will be happy.

Men Are Just Happier People!!
What do you expect from such simple creatures?

Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves
Chocolate is just another snack.

You can be Prime Minister.
You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.

The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.

Wrinkles add character.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.

The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time.

Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.

A five-day holiday requires only one suitcase.
You can open all your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.

Your underwear is £5.00 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You almost never have strap problems in public.
You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original colour.

The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.

You can play with toys all your life.
Your belly usually hides your big hips.

One wallet and one pair of shoes one colour for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a moustache.

You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier...!!

maybe...I haven't found one

I started this blog almost a year ago, with lots of ins and outs. Since Sep 2006, I finally decided to be a regular blogger and I did. But again the past trend continues, with lots of irregularities. I am reading a blog on "how to start a blog?". It days "post something right now" soon after registering for the free blog sites. Mine is pretty old and yet it's hard to convince myself saying "write it anything". This is just a junk.

I think I haven't found one. The same blog 'how to start a blog' says to find a perfect match.

[...]2. Pick a topic — you can change it when you know what you’re doing.
This is like dating. Pick something that seems good, and if it isn’t, try again. Don’t get hung up on topic. As in dating, you’ll know when you’ve found one that’s the right fit. There are some obvious things, like pick a topic you have a lot to say about, pick something that interests you, pick something that will help your career. This is great advice, but you already know that if you look for a perfect match you’ll never actually go on a date.[...]

I guess I am still trying to find a perfect date so that I can be regular and enthusiast about it and i will have a sense of purpose of maintaining blogs. If you scan through my blogs, you will see content on many diverse topics. Anyways I suppose "My Cupboard" can store anything. This is not a specific cupboard. It's my junkyard. I have also started some other specific topics blogs on Tech, ICTs and I am not actually feeling like posting there. The reason is I have to write a good planned content for such specific topics and I wandered around net easily. I am learning new things, techniques almost everyday. I recently found a beautiful php framework "Codeigniter". It's damn simple. Then I found another wonderful jquery, a javascript library, that makes javascript a toy. I myself have tweaked in lots of jquery plugins and codeigniter to suit my needs and there are so many things I could have contributed and yet....

People are reading my blogs...

When I first started to track my blog readers using sitemeter, I used to check that site every so hour. I was very happy when the number started to increase and reached 10/11 views per day. That was a great achievement for me. It's been 2 weeks that I am not writing and yet people are still coming to my blogs, and I feel bad that I just stopped blogging for no apparent reason than just procrastinating. I so much hate procrastination and yet I do.

I guess I will give at least half an hour for blogging. Many people would give different reasons for blogging - earning money, spreading your voice, easy to let others know about your existence. But I am writing just for the sake of writing and nothing at all. If people are interested, then I would be very happy. But again my purpose for now is just writing and break away what amateur writers often experience "the writer's block". At least I have a purpose, though for myself.

Is writing difficult?

Well it's been almost 2 weeks that I totally stopped blogging. Now even though I want to write, the words wouldn't flow as 2 weeks back. I listened to power writing series by Brian Tracy and he mentioned that if you want to be good at writing, then just write. Probably why I am writing right now. Just let the words flow and keep writing, there'll be plenty of time to review and any writing needs at least 5 edits. Wow... I have never done such ever in my life. I don't know how many of you like writing and yet find it difficulty in doing so? It's difficult if you think it's difficult. I have been reading and listening to lots of self-help stuffs and I really like the one called the power of mind. If you can envision yourself that you achieved something, it's really easy to fool our mind. I guess I will try to fool my mind saying that writing is damn easy and I am really good at it. Will update you.