Tuesday, November 04, 2008

“Geek-Out” Adventurous White-Water-Rafting for “Virtechies”





Imagine a brainstorm session. Imagine a picnic. Imagine a meeting of the geekiest and most technologically savvy people. Imagine it all happening at the same time in the same place. Geek-Out offers a unique opportunity for geekiest and most technologically savvy people to meet in a completely informal environment for some much deserved rest and relaxation. Rafter's Retreat situated in Kitulgala 90 Km from Colombo (2.5 hr Drive) is an eco-resort, popularized by white water rafting and Modeled on the popular Foo Camps on the banks of the Kelani River of "Bridge on the River Kwai" fame.
Owner, Channa, is the epitome of life in the woodland and on the river. Channa runs a 3-day adventure programme (2 nights) packed with bird-watching, mountain biking, pre-historic Beli Lena caves, a day white-water-rafting (fine for age 6+ and non-swimmers)
Eco lodges/tree-houses set 6 ft above ground level with each has twin beds, lampshades and hooks made from natural woods from the estate, Roofed with palm leaves and walled by wooden slats, yet discreetly modernised with electricity and plumbing awaits the tiring visitors to provide comfort.
Service is 100% within the context of eco-projects, welcoming, friendly and with lots of tuition on living with nature – but don’t expect any frills. April to November is the best time to visit Kitulgala to enjoy all the adventure and stunning lush. Contact Channa on 0777-421455 for your Adventurous Team Outings.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

I Believe...

1. I believe that life is there to enjoy.

2. I believe crushes are there to crush hearts.

3. I believe true love is there from the start.

4. I believe you should give people chances.

5. I believe you should treat people the same because you never know what they will do for you in the future.

6. I believe that good things will come to people who work hard.

7. I believe great things come to people who never give up .

8. I believe silence will teach you something if you listen hard.

9. I believe that the heart leads you in the right direction if you follow it.

10. I believe friends are needed no matter who you are.

11. I believe family should stick by your side.

12. I believe God will help you if you believe in him and trust him.

13. I believe drugs destroy.

14. I believe sleep calms the soul.

15. I believe the heart and soul are more important than looks.

16. I believe trust helps the world go round.

17. I believe love brings great things.

18. I believe kids could teach adults a lot if adults would just listen.

19.I believe pets are great because they listen and love you no matter what you look like.

20. I believe you should always chase your dreams.

21. I believe hope is something everyone needs.

22. I believe you need to make time for fun.

23. I believe music soothes the soul.

24. I believe that money cannot buy happiness.

25. I believe books can take you anywhere.

26. I believe jokes have to be there to keep people sane.

27. I believe people are special the way they are.

28. I believe that true friends will last a lifetime.

29. I believe that enjoying what you do will help you enjoy life more.

30. I believe parents are more important than you think.

31. I believe the sky is the limit.

32. I believe you should shoot for the stars.

33. I believe being loved and loving are two totally different things.

34. I believe that you have to love yourself before you can love others.

35. I believe records are made to be broken.

36. I believe promises should be kept.

37. I believe brothers and sisters are made to teach.

38. I believe a simple smile can make anybody's day better.

39. I believe that being popular is not the key to life.

40. I believe in being nice to nerds because you might grow up and have to work for one.

Monday, August 25, 2008

LIFE in Four Photos




First Pic

Break of Dawn -- New lease of life, embarking upon a New Voyage......
A Child Flying Kite -- Young Blood, Aspiring to Fly High with Enormous Zest n Zeal...Coz U Know, Sky is The Limit......
A Small Tree -- Need to Nurture.......
Two Birds Hovering Above -- There r People Around to Take Ample Care of You, You r Actually Carefree.......


Second Pic

Daylight -- You r Almost Halfway Through in This Voyage Called Life.....
Couple -- You Have a Better half of Yours to Lean Upon n Speak Your Heart Out to......
Grown-up Tree -- You Have Been Nurtured Profusely to Stand Tall n Rigidly in The Storms That May, Otherwise, Let U Down........ .
A Small Tree -- You, Together With Your Better half, Have Given a New Lease of Life to Another Breaking Dawn (Your Child).........
One Bird Hovering Above -- There r Comparatively Less People around You to Take Care of You, Unlike during Your Wonder Childhood Years.......


Third Pic

Fall of Dusk -- Twilight is setting Upon, Life Has Come a Full Circle....
An Old Man -- It's a Race Against Time Now On, It's The Beginning of The End of The Voyage......
Ageing Tree -- Signifies The Above Two Things, Second One Being The Personification of This........
Grown Tree -- Your Kids Have Grown Up; It's High Time You Start Supporting Them With Tender Care Rather Than Clashes..........
One Bird -- Self Explanatory, I Guess???
Grave -- In Course of The Voyage You Have Lost Loved Ones n You Also Start to Anticipate Your Ultimate Fate n Destiny..........


Fourth Pic

Nightfall -- Voyage is Over, Darkness is Looming Over, High Time to Say Good Bye....
Starry Sky -- There's Still Happiness Around, Thanks to The Aesthetic Memories Left by You n The Good Work Done Too..... .
Grown-up Tree -- Your Kids r Walking in Your Shoes now, It's For Them to Follow Your Footsteps Drawing Inspiration From Your Exemplary Life..
Grave With Two Crosses -- You r United with Your Soul mates n RIPS........

"Someone's Watching Over Me"

Found myself today
Oh I found myself and ran away
Something pulled me back
The voice of reason I forgot I had
All I know is you're not here to say
What you always used to say
But it's written in the sky tonight

So I won't give up
No I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe
Someone's watching over me

Seen that ray of light
And it's shining on my destiny
Shining all the time
And I wont be afraid
To follow everywhere it's taking me
All I know is yesterday is gone
And right now I belong
To this moment to my dreams

So I won't give up
No I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe
Someone's watching over me

It doesn't matter what people say
And it doesn't matter how long it takes
Believe in yourself and you'll fly high
And it only matters how true you are
Be true to yourself and follow your heart

So I won't give up
No I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even if it all goes wrong
When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe
That I won't give up
No I won't break down
Sooner than it seems life turns around
And I will be strong
Even when it all goes wrong
When I'm standing in the dark I'll still believe
That someone's watching over
Someone's watching over
Someone's watching over me

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Saturday, July 19, 2008

A perfect women for... him

Who will Cry when you Die? By Robin Sharma



Robin Sharma, the Author says: "When you live your truth, your dreams beat a path toward your doorstep".

Robin S. Sharma is an acclaimed international guru who guides readers towards enlightenment. The success of his best seller The monk Who Sold His Ferrari is nothing less than sensational!
That book had a captivating, as well as a delightful story. When I was still under the spell of Sharma’s books, I started reading this book. This book does lay a tough task ahead of us!

“Who will cry when you die” sets about making us think hard as to how to manifest the fullness of our talents. It is not simple though, we know! Robin Sharma calls this book life lessons which is of course very apt. The title suggests that we should live such a life that the world cries when we die! Who wouldn’t ask for that? He gives simple solutions to what we think are complex problems. But I find that, the language and the way he puts them are simple, but to follow them is definitely complex.

Frankly speaking, even the title is a bit odd..WHO WILL CRY WHEN YOU DIE...I mean at least I don’t want people cry when I die, already they would be so sad and here Robin Sharma is so concerned about people who all will cry when some body dies? I think the title of this book looks good when you look at it ,but when you think about it, its really vague..

The author has given not less than hundred points for us to follow to enrich our lives. At this rate, reading this book has to be a life long pursuit, if we want to follow at least some of them. I personally feel, if we patiently read through the book completely, we are on step one already! It needs a strong determination on our goal towards self improvement to think and climb on to the second step! It is, in patches, similar to a moral science book, since it is full of “do’s” and “don’ts” in life!

But we can’t deny that even if we start practising a few of them to start with, there will be better balance, control and effectiveness in our daily lives. There is no doubt that this will be a pleasure for the people who interact with us! So we start with the idea that “the pleasure of my improvement will be others’, not mine!” To think this way, is not easy either!

To start with, if we identify our calling & make it our way of life, our life starts changing for the better. We all want to be the person which we never are, ultimately! I think I am going through this phase personally after all these years, in my life and hence I am able to appreciate this point better ! We struggle to establish an identity for ourselves throughout our life, but very often, only unsuccessfully! Sharma suggests working hard at it, is worthy of the reward, we get in life.

A very interesting suggestion of R. Sharma is to take a “worry break”, allotting a specific time every day, exclusively to brood over your difficulties. He says make a note of all your worries the whole day and wallow in your problems in the allotted time. He assures us that gradually we will decrease the time for this break and eventually this habit will be eliminated forever! Sounds worth trying! But there may be one problem – we will end up creating worries since we have allotted a time for that & we do not want to waste that time, not worrying! So this suggestion has to be tried with special care!

A practical solution to create a sound Life and strikingly balance life filling in the gaps with humility. Robin refers to his father's words that a tree that has most fruits is that which bends to the ground. And though there are some exceptions he have found in his own experience that it is true-the people who know the most, who have achieved the most, and have lived the most, are also the people closest to the ground. In a word, they are humble. There is something special about being in the presence of a person who is humble.

Robin Sharma thinks that practicing humility shows that you respect others and reminds us that there is something for us to learn. It sends a signal to those around you that you are open to receiving the gift of their knowledge and listening to what they have to say. The book is door to exceptional life and live life to the fullest with a purpose and attain peace. The book is in-depth wisdom with absolute life changing solutions to cope with life's trials, challenges, frustrations and so on.

Like Deepak Chopra, Sharma also suggests regularly spending time in communion with nature and silently witness the intelligence within every living thing. I personally follow this, since reading this book and find that it keeps me centred on my highest life priorities. This has made a difference in my life.

Sharma expects us to be mature enough to see troubles as blessings which teach us valuable lessons in life. It is rightly said that tough men last and tough times don’t! I personally feel this trait cannot be cultivated, but we come to accept it only when life takes its toll on us, mercilessly, sometimes.

Yet another point which I liked very much in this book, is one I have been practising, ever since I attended my energy classes. Whenever we give away money, if we bless it and give, it comes back to us many fold! This only proves the timeless truth that the hand that gives is the hand that gathers. To bless the money every time we give cash or cheque – does sound odd and funny, but even once you are proved right, you start practising it – who does not want money to come back, multiplied?

Our respecting our own instincts – the voice within, is stressed by the author and rightly so. It helps us decide whether that thought or action is within or outside our “comfort zone” as we call it. I think this is one of the best suggestions given by the author & the morally strong sounding word “conscience” is replaced by the layman’s word “voice within”! Now it looks within our reach!

If the book “ The monk who sold his ferrari” helped readers cope with the rat race of life, this book with its long list of lessons does make us wonder whether we can take up the challenge at all. But I am not one to give up easily & try I did my best! Regular reading of the book and trying to incorporate atleast a few in my life have made my mind more full, and life more happy. The more I live, the harder I want to work and rejoice in life for its own sake. Only then I would have been fully used up when I die and hopefully, people who know me will cry!

As Robin Sharma recently visited India in preparation for the production of 'The Monk who sold his Ferrari' as a major motion picture, Robin reminded in his speech that wherever in the world he went, he found human beings struggle with same challenges, same longings. All people are part of one great family with invisible ties. Thus, peace is at your own doorstep and Robin Sharma's books are real 'Gem Picks' - Yeah, sure you can surf his website too and hear his Gem voice too! Good Pick & Great Message.

Who is Robin Sharma?

Robin is one of the world's top leadership experts and the author of 10 international bestsellers on leadership and personal success. He is the CEO of Sharma Leadership International Inc. (SLI), a global learning firm focused on helping people Lead Without Title. A former litigation lawyer, Robin holds 2 law degrees including a Masters of Law. His work has helped millions of people in over 50 countries show leadership in their work and personal lives. SLI clients include many of the worlds best known organizations including GE, Microsoft, IBM, Nike, FedEx, BP and Yale University.

Success Facts:
• In an independent ranking of the world's top leadership experts by leadershipgurus.net Robin is ranked #2 (along with Jim Collins, Jack Welch and John Maxwell)
• Robin's books have been published in over 50 countries and in 40 languages
• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is the 5th best selling book in the history of Israel. It has been on India's Top 10 bestseller list of rover 2 years. Robin's books have been the fastest selling books in Turkish publishing history. His books have also been blockbusters in Japan, Spain, England, Dubai, Mexico, Singapore, Puerto Rico and throughout South America.
• Robin starred in his own PBS special and has appeared on over 1000 television and radio shows.
• Robin Sharma is the founder of The Robin Sharma Foundation for Children to help underprivileged children become leaders.

Robin’s Mission Statement:
• To help people and organizations Lead Without Title.

Family Status:
• Single Dad

Greatest Blessings:
• "My 2 children. And the fact that I get to do what I do."

Favorite Recreational Passions:
• Skiing, sailing, music, travelling (ideally with a backpack) reading, nature, and great conversation
Favorite Quotes:
• “The tragedy of life is not death. The tragedy of life is what we allow to die inside of us while we live.” Dr. Norman Cousins
• "Your lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr

Robin’s "Cindrella Story":
A former lawyer, he quit his job and self-published a book at a Kinko's copy shop (his mother edited it). Stored 2000 copies in his kitchen. Second book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari was also originally self-published until former HarperCollins president Ed Carson discovered Robin in a bookstore. The book, and the series that followed, has become one of the world's most successful publishing franchises.
What’s the Buzz on Robin Sharma: Robin's become one of the most trusted advisors on Leadership and Personal Success to organizations internationally. Many Fortune 500 companies have already embraced Leadership Wisdom From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. Corporate transformations have occurred in organizations such as Microsoft, IBM, FedEx, Panasonic, Kraft, General Motors and Panasonic. The book is essentially about creating workplaces where it’s safe to be human again, helping leaders work and live by a high moral code, inspiring individuals to step up to the plate and show leadership at work and in their personal lives.

What People are Saying about Robin and his Work:
• "Independently ranked one of the top 10 leadership gurus in the world." - LeadershipGurus.net
• "Robin Sharma's books are helping people all around the world live great lives." - Paulo Coelo, author of the international bestseller The Alchemist
• "Though Sharma rejects the guru label, it's hard not to think of the CEO of the training and coaching firm Sharma Leadership International that way" - Publishers Weekly
• "Robin Sharma has the rare gift of writing books that are fun to read yet truly life changing." Richard Carlson, Ph.D., author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Don't Sweat The Small Stuff.
• "The Saint, The Surfer and The CEO will touch and change many lives." John Gray, author of the #1 bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
• "Another amazing, life-changing book by Robin Sharma." Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the international bestselling series Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Favourite Books
• The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
• A Manual For Living - by Epictetus (Interpretation by Sharon Lebell)
• The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Marcus Aurelius Antonius
• Hope for the Flowers - Trina Paulus
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Ben Franklin
• The Magic of Thinking Big - David Schwartz
• Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
• Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership - Joe Jaworsky
• The Message of a Master - John McDonald
• Often Wrong, Never in Doubt: Unleash the Business Rebel With - Donny Deutsch
• iCon Stev Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Buisness - Jeffery S. Yound and William L. Simon
• Thinking Body, Dancing Mind - Jerry Lynch
• The Power of Optimism - Alan Loy McGinnis
• Take Your Time - Eknath Easwaran
• The Go-Getter - Peter B. Kyne
• The Art of Happiness - Howard Cutler
• The Art of Worldy Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian
• University of Success - Og Mandino
• Small Graces - Kent Nerburn
• The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz
• The Magic of Believing - Claude Bristol
• Walden - Henry David Thoreau

Favourite Movies
• The Matrix
• Million Dollar Baby
• Braveheart
• The Shawshank
• Redemption
• Wall Street Scarface
• Scent of A Woman
• Gladiator
• Life is Beautiful
• Dead Poet's Society

Favourite CDs
• Cafe Del Mar: Volume 7
• How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2
• X & Y by Coldplay
• O by Damien Rice
• In Violet Light by The Tragically Hip
• In Between Evolution by The Tragically Hip
• Part of the Process by Morcheeba Amar
• Es Combatir by Mana

Favourite Sites
• The New York Times
• Fast Company
• Business 2.0
• Zaadz
• Wired
• Squidoo
• Human Clock
• ClickZ
• Apple
• Amazon
• Wikipedia
• YouTube

His most famous book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, which is told like a fable, has been published in dozens of countries in dozens of languages.

Other publications include:

* Who Will Cry When You Die?
* Leadership Wisdom From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
* Discover Your Destiny With The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
* The Greatness Guide: Powerful secrets of getting to World Class
* Discover Your Destiny
* The Saint, the Surfer and the CEO
* Mega Living!

Sharma is the CEO of Sharma Leadership International Inc., a global training firm whose clients include GE, Nike, FedEx, NASA, Unilever, Microsoft, BP, IBM, The Harvard Business School and Yale University.



Good to Great By James Collins aka Jim Collins

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't is a management book by James C. Collins that aims to describe how companies transition from being average companies to great companies and how companies can fail to make the transition. "Greatness" is defined as financial performance several multiples better than the market average over a sustained period of time. Collins finds the main factor for achieving the transition to be a narrow focusing of the company’s resources on their field of competence.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Farewell Timmy 5th July 2008

Today July 5th, 2008 I write another sad story of mine. Departing of a good friend. Departing of a loyal friend. Departing of a faithful friend. It’s Timothy (Timmy) my pet dog being with us for almost 10 years.

The memories run back 10 years. Timmy is the best gift I’ve ever got from my Best friend in 1997, it was hard to separate him from his siblings at that time. The small one was always the center of attraction among his sister and two brothers. And he was lucky enough to live beyond his siblings life span.

I am not sure exactly the time he passed away, I assume it was today early morning (1 a.m. to 3 a.m.) his last breath was taken away. The body still had a light warm when I discovered him under my sisters bed around 9.45. He missed his usual tea and it made us to find him everywhere. I know I am writing like a kindergarten kid but no words are coming out.

So we decided to wait till my sister comes home for the Burial. Actually Timmy was a gift to her for her good results during the OL exams back in1997. And most of the time Timmy spend time with her every time my mom was not at home. Its me who always protected him when getting beaten up for all the naughty things he did. So no matter what, he always used to come to my room at night to get his neck rubbed before I go to sleep.

For the last 10 years its Timmy I’ve always grab into my lap and hug whenever I went through shitty situations. Now I guess it’s time for me to move on. After all that’s life I guess.




Thursday, June 05, 2008

HARVARD COMMENCEMENT SPEECH - 2008

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

Text as prepared follows.
Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008
----------------------------------

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.

Thank you very much.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Top 10 reasons to start a business at uni

10. A more impressive story.
9. No family to take care of, mortgage to pay etc.
8. Aren't oppressed by the system i.e. can still think 'outside the box'.
7. No fat paycheck to walk away from.
6. Ignorance is bliss.
5. Can't lose what you don't have.
4. Free resources at your fingertips.
3. Ability to live like a hobo
2. Plenty of time to do it again if you fail.
1. You're at uni now.

Monday, June 02, 2008

My 1st Job... I mean my 1st real job

It’s been a long time since I last posted. My life has changed dramatically. One loveable sister already departed, and other one to leave soon. Several things happen in my life..some good and some bad. I dunno? I will leave that to u!
Going to Kovil early Saturday morning has now become a habit. Few things happened during the last 2 years which I cannot describe myself. Even though I tried my self hard I still have no answers. And I still pray god every Saturday morning for his grace, wisdom, encouragement and will power without which my life would be harder than I can ever imagine for last couple of months.
Its been a hard and fast journey. I finally submitted my FYP on time, and both my Supervisor and Assessor were impressed in the way I did my presentation. Finally I have done with my university life. And for me I still feels like in 2004 September 14th… the day we started our Degree as fresh school leavers at a Strict Professional Institute called APIIT. Soon after my Uni Exams, my sis got married. It was a Grand wedding and everything went nicely and smoothly as we all expected. And again thank you God for your grace, wisdom, encouragement and will power to keep my family going through all ups and downs. I wish all the very best for my sister and new brother in law for a wonderful and lovely life ahead of them with millions of beautiful babies and Gods prayers for both to stand thick and thin to each other through out their medical profession.
And today 2nd June 2008, I got my first real paid job. The place I used to work for my Internship. A dream come true, an excellent opportunity with an excellent package. What else can I ask from u dear God. And again thank you for your grace, wisdom, encouragement and will power given to me constantly through out my life to reach my dreams and achieve my goals for each year.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Some Serious Thoughts

Never explain yourself to anyone. Beacuse the person who likes you doesn't need it, and the person who dislikes you won't believe it.

Don't let someone become a priority in your life, when you are just an option in their life...Relationships work best when they are balanced.

In life just don't trust people, who change their feelings with time...Instead trust those people whose feelings remain the same, even when time changes...

We make them cry who cares for us. We cry for those who never care for us. And we care for those who will never cry for us. This is the truth of life., its strange but true. Once you realise this, its never too late to change.

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth - not going all the way, and not starting - Buddha

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish - Steve Jobs

A loving heart is the truest wisdom. - Charles Dickens

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

Sometimes life is gonna hit you on the head with a brick, but don't loose faith. You got to find what you love.

Sometimes you have to free the things you love the most to deserve what you destined.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.

I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. - Sir Winston Churchill

The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.

Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Few people know that they have the power to bless life. We bless the life in each other far more than we realize. Many simple, ordinary things that we do can affect those around us in profound ways.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clarke

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

I like it

I wanna believe in it all again music and art, fate and love. I wanna believe that i've made the right choices and im on the right path and there's still time to fix the mistakes i've made. And i guess i want hope and i want him/her.
---
OTH

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Young Man and the Starfish: A Motivational Story about Making a Difference


Once upon a time there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his journal writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn't dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer he called out, "Good morning! What are you doing?"

The young man paused, looked up and replied, "Throwing starfish in the ocean."

"I guess I should have asked, why are you throwing starfish in the ocean?"

"The sun is up, and the tide is going out. And if I don't throw them in they'll die."

"But, young man, don't you realize that there are miles and miles of beach, and starfish all along it. You can't possibly make a difference!"

The young man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves and said, "It made a difference for Inspirational Storythat one."

There is something very special in each and every one of us. We have all been gifted with the ability to make a difference. And if we can become aware of that gift, we gain through the strength of our visions the power to shape the future. We must each find our starfish. And if we throw our stars wisely and well, the world will be blessed.

Author Unknown

Inspirational Speech: Any Given Sunday



I don’t know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we’re finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.

Now I can’t do it for you.
I’m too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh….
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That’s, that’s part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don’t quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that’s going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.

I’ll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can’t make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.

That’s a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That’s football guys.
That’s all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?

"Yes, I know my LIFE is like a football game, but this is not what i expected to be my life, It just happened, This place made me who i am now, Fortunately 2 more weeks to go :) "

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Think Win-Win

Win/Win is one of six total philosophies of human interaction.

1. Win/Win - People can seek mutual benefit in all human interactions. Principle-based behavior.

2. Win/Lose - The competitive paradigm: if I win, you lose. The leadership style is authoritarian. In relationships, if both people aren't winning, both are losing.

3. Lose/Win - The "Doormat" paradigm. The individual seeks strength from popularity based on acceptance. The leadership style is permissiveness. Living this paradigm can result in psychosomatic illness from repressed resentment.

4. Lose/Lose - When people become obsessed with making the other person lose, even at their own expense. This is the philosophy of adversarial conflict, war, or of highly dependent persons. (If nobody wins, being a loser isn't so bad.)

5. Win - Focusing solely on getting what one wants, regardless of the needs of others.

6. Win/Win or No Deal - If we can't find a mutually beneficial solution, we agree to disagree agreeably - no deal. This approach is most realistic at the beginning of a business relationship or enterprise. In a continuing relationship, it's no longer an option.

The most appropriate model depends on the situation. When relationships are paramount, Win/Win is the only viable alternative. In a competitive situation where building a relationship isn't important, Win/Lose may be appropriate. There are five dimensions of the Win/Win model: Character, Relationships, Agreements, Supportive Systems and Processes.

1. Character is the foundation of Win/Win. There must be integrity in order to establish trust in the relationship and to define a win in terms of personal values. A key trait is the abundance mentality that there is plenty for everybody (v. the Scarcity Mentality). The abundance mentality flows from a deep inner sense of personal worth and security.

2. Relationships are the focus on Win/Win. Whatever the orientation of the person you are dealing with (Win/Lose, etc.), the relationship is the key to turning the situation around. When there is a relationship of trust and emotional bank account balances are high, there is a much greater probability of a successful, productive interaction. Negative energy focused on differences in personality or position is eliminated; positive, cooperative energy focused on understanding and resolving issues is built.

3. Performance agreements or partnership agreements give definition and direction to Win/Win,. They shift the paradigm of production from vertical (Superior - Subordinate) to horizontal (Partnership/Team). The agreement should include elements to create a standard by which people can measure their own success.

1. Defined results (not methods) - what is to be done and when.
2. Guidelines - the parameters within which the results should be accomplished
3. Resources - human, financial, technical or organizational support available to accomplish the results.
4. Accountability - the standards of performance and time(s) of evaluation.
5. Consequences - what will happen as a result of the evaluation.

The agreement may be written by the employee to the manager to confirm the understanding.
Developing Win/Win performance agreements is the central activity of management, enabling employers to manage themselves within the framework of the agreement. Then the manager can initiate action and resolve obstacles so employees can do their jobs.

There are four kinds of consequences that management or parents can control - Financial, Psychic, Opportunity and Responsibility. In addition to personal consequences, the organizational consequences of behaviors should be identified.

4. The Reward System is a key element in the Win/Win model. Talking Win/Win but rewarding Win/Lose results in negating the Win/Win paradigm. If the outstanding performance of a few is rewarded, the other team members will be losers. Instead, develop individual achievable goals and team objectives to be rewarded.

Competition has its place against market competitors, last year's performance, or another location or individual where cooperation and interdependence aren't required, but cooperation in the workplace is as important to free enterprise as competition in the marketplace. The spirit of Win/Win cannot survive in an environment of competition or contests. All of the company's systems should be based on the principle of Win/Win. The Compensation system of the managers should be based on the productivity and development of their people. Reward both P (production) and PC (building production capacity).

5. The Win/Win process has four steps.

1. See the problem from the other point of view, in terms of the needs and concerns of the other party.

2. Identify the key issues and concerns (not positions) involved.

3. Determine what results would make a fully acceptable solution.

4. Identify new options to achieve those results.

You can only achieve Win/Win solutions with Win/Win procedures. Win/Win is not a personality technique. It's a total paradigm of human interaction.

Warren Edward Buffett's Time Line - World's Richest Man

1943: (13 years old)

* Buffett filed his first income tax return, deducting his bicycle as a work expense for $35.

1945: (15 years old)

* In his senior year of high school, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in a barber shop. Within months, they owned three machines in different locations.

1949: (19 years old)

* In 1949, he was initiated into Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity while an undergraduate at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. His father and uncles were also Alpha Sigma Phi brothers from the chapter at Nebraska, where Warren eventually transferred.

1950: (20 years old)

* Buffett enrolled at Columbia Business School after learning that Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, two well-known securities analysts, taught there.

1951: (21 years old)

* Buffett discovered Graham was on the Board of GEICO insurance at the time. After taking a train to Washington, D.C. on a Saturday, Buffett knocked on the door of GEICO's headquarters until a janitor allowed him in. There, he met Lorimer Davidson, the Vice President, who was to become a lasting influence on him and life-long friend.
* Buffett graduated from Columbia and wanted to work on Wall Street. Buffett offered to work for Graham for free but Graham refused. He purchased a Sinclair gas station as a side investment, but that venture did not work out as well as he had hoped. Meanwhile, he worked as a stockbroker. During that time, Buffett also took a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Using what he learned, he felt confident enough to teach a night class at the University of Nebraska, "Investment Principles." The average age of the students he taught was more than twice his own.

1952: (22 years old)

* Buffett married Susan Thompson.

1954: (24 years old)

* Benjamin Graham offered Buffett a job at his partnership with a starting salary of $12,000 a year. Here, he worked closely with Walter Schloss.
* Susan had her first child, Howard Graham Buffett.

1956: (25 years old)

* Benjamin Graham retired and folded up his partnership.
* Buffett's personal savings are now over $140,000.
* Buffett returned home to Omaha and created Buffett Associates, Ltd., an investment partnership.

1957: (27 years old)

* Buffett had three partnerships operating the entire year.
* Buffett purchased a five-bedroom, stucco house on Farnam Street for $31,500.
* Susan was about to have her third child.

1958: (28 years old)

* Buffett had five partnerships operating the entire year.

1959: (29 years old)

* Buffett had six partnerships operating the entire year.
* Buffett was introduced to Charlie Munger.

1960: (30 years old)

* Buffett had seven partnerships operating the entire year.
* The partnerships were: Buffett Associates, Buffett Fund, Dacee, Emdee, Glenoff, Mo-Buff, and Underwood.
* Buffett asks one of his partners, a doctor, to find ten other doctors who will be willing to invest $10,000 each into his partnership. Eventually, eleven doctors agreed to invest.

1961: (31 years old)

* Buffett revealed that Sanborn Map Company accounted for 35% of the partnerships' assets.
* Buffett explained that in 1958, Sanborn sold at $45 per share when the value of the Sanborn investment portfolio was $65 per share. This meant buyers valued Sanborn at "minus $20" per share, and buyers were unwilling to pay more than 70 cents on the dollar for an investment portfolio with a map business thrown in for nothing.
* Buffett reveals that he earned a spot on the board of Sanborn.

1962: (32 years old)

* Buffett's partnerships, in January 1962, had in excess of $7,178,500 of which over $1,025,000 belonged to Buffett.
* Buffett merges all partnerships into one partnership.
* Buffett discovered a textile manufacturing firm, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett's partnerships began purchasing shares at $7.60 per share.

1965: (35 years old)

* When Buffett's partnerships began aggressively purchasing Berkshire they paid $14.86 per share while the company had working capital (current assets minus liabilities) of $19 per share, this did not include the value of fixed assets (factory and equipment).
* Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway at the board meeting and named a new President, Ken Chace, to run the company.

1966: (36 years old)

* Buffett closes the partnership to new money.
* Buffett wrote in his letter “unless it appears that circumstances have changed (under some conditions added capital would improve results) or unless new partners can bring some asset to the partnership other than simply capital, I intend to admit no additional partners to BPL.”
* In a second letter, Buffett announced his first investment in a private business — Hochschild, Kohn, and Co, a privately owned Baltimore department store.

1967: (37 years old)

* Berkshire paid out its first and only dividend of 10 cents.

1969: (39 years old)

* Following his most successful year, Buffett liquidated the partnership and transferred their assets to his partners. Among the assets paid out were shares of Berkshire Hathaway.

1970: (40 years old)

* As chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, began writing his now-famous annual letters to shareholders.

1973: (43 years old)

* Berkshire began to acquire stock in the Washington Post Company. Buffett became close friends with Katharine Graham, who controlled the company and its flagship newspaper, and became a member of its board of directors.

1979: (49 years old)

* Berkshire began to acquire stock in ABC. With the stock trading at $290 per share, Buffett's net worth neared $140 million. However, he lived solely on his salary of $50,000 per year.
* Berkshire began the year trading at $775 per share, and ended at $1,310. Buffett's net worth reached $620 million, placing him on the Forbes 400 for the first time.

1988: (58 years old)

* Buffett began buying stock in Coca-Cola Company, eventually purchasing up to 7 percent of the company for $1.02 billion. It would turn out to be one of Berkshire's most lucrative investments, and one which he still holds.

1999: (69 years old)

* Buffett is named the top money manager of the 20th century in a survey by the Carson Group, ahead of Peter Lynch and John Templeton.

2002: (72 years old)

* Buffett entered in $11 billion worth of forward contracts to deliver US dollars against other currencies. By April 2006, his total gain on these contracts was over $2 billion.

2004: (73 years old)

* His wife, Susan, dies.

2006: (75 years old)

* Buffett announced in June that he would give away more than 80%, or about $99 billion, of his $491 billion fortune to five foundations in annual gifts of stock, starting in July 2006. The largest contribution will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

2007: (76 Years old)

* In a letter to shareholders, Buffett announced that he was looking for a younger successor or perhaps successors to run his investment business. Buffett had previously selected Lou Simpson, who runs investments at Geico, to fill that role. However, Simpson is only six years younger than Buffett.

2008: (77 Years old)

* Buffett becomes the richest man in the world according to Forbes.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Never, put your banana in the refrigerator!!!

Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose
combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial
boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough
energy for a strenuous 90-minute work-out. No wonder the banana is the
number one fruit with the world's leading athletes. But energy isn't the
only way.

A banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a
substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to
our daily diet.

Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst
people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a
banana. This is because bananas contain Tryptophan, a type of protein that
the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your
mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains
regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of
hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in
potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So
much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana
industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk
of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were
helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break,
and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power.

Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning
by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help
restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without
resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a
banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and,
with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while
the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you
suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood
sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing
the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it
amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous
system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in
Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like
chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found
the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report
concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control
our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two
hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal
disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw
fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also
neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of
the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a "cooling"
fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of
expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to
ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because
they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking &Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to give up
smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium
found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine
withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the
heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water
balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing
our potassium levels. These can be re-balanced with the help of a
high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine,
eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by
strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to
kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with
the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or
surgical tape!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it
to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three
times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the
other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the
best value foods around So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase
so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"

PASS IT ON TO YOUR FRIENDS
PS: Bananas must be the reason monkeys are so happy all the time! I will
add one here; want a quick shine on our shoes?? Take the INSIDE of the
banana skin, and rub directly on the shoe...polish with dry cloth. Amazing
fruit.

Monday, March 03, 2008

T h e B e s t M o m e n t s I n L i f e

1. Falling in love :(

2. Laughing till your stomach hurts :)

3. Enjoying a ride down the country side :)

4. Listening to your favorite song on the radio :)

5. Going to sleep listening to the rain pouring outside :)

6. Getting out of the shower and wrapping yourself with a warm, fuzzy towel :)

7. Passing your final exams with good grades :(

8. Being a part of an interesting conversation :)

9. Finding some money in some old pants :)

10. Laughing at yourself :)

11. Sharing a wonderful dinner with all your friends :)

12. Laughing without a reason :)

13. "Accidentally" hearing someone say somthing good about you :)

14. Watching the sunset :)

15. Listening to a song that reminds you of an important person in your life :)

16. Receiving or giving your first kiss :(

17. Feeling this buzz in your body when seeing this "special" someone :)

18. Having a great time with your friends :)

19. Seeing the one you love happy :(

20. Wearing the shirt of a person you love and smelling his/her perfume :(

21. Visiting an old friend of yours and remembering great memories :)

22. Hearing someone telling you "I LOVE YOU" :(

"True friends come in the good times when we tell them to, and come in the bad times.....without calling."

Sunday, February 24, 2008

PicLens: Coolest Web photo viewer ever . . .

PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen 3D experience for viewing images across the web. Our new interactive "3D Wall" lets you effortlessly drag, click, and zoom your way around a wall of pictures for an extraordinary viewing experience. The new search box lets you search the Web in full-screen using Google, Yahoo, SmugMug, Flickr, Photobucket, and DeviantArt. Just type a query and view all the results in the PicLens wall.

"Visually, the results are stunning. This Firefox plugin is going to find a lot of fans very, very quickly." - Review on Techcrunch.com

" Coolest Web photo viewer ever . . . It's stunning." -- Review by CNET

Piclens is currently works on:

* Flickr, Smugmug, DeviantArt, Photobucket, Picasa
* Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster
* Image search on Google, Yahoo, Ask, Live, and AOL
* A growing number of Media RSS-enabled web sites

With PicLens, viewing images on the web will never be the same again.

Now available for Windows and Mac.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Goo Goo Dolls - Iris



Verse 1

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now
Verse 2

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight
Chorus

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
Verse 3

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

Chorus

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
Chorus

I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

Thursday, February 14, 2008

'What does love mean?'

An email I got from a friend :)

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore.
So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.'
Rebecca- age 8

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'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.'
Billy - age 4

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'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.'
Karl - age 5

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'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'
Chrissy - age 6

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'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.'
Terr i - age 4

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'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.'
Danny - age 7

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'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.'
Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)


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'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you h ate,'
Nikka - age 6
(we need a few million more Nikka's on this planet)

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'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.'
Noelle - age 7

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Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.'
Tommy - age 6

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'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling.
He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.'
Cindy - age 8

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'My mommy loves me more than anybody
You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.'
Clare - age 6

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'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.'
Elaine-age 5

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'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.'
Mary Ann - age 4

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'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.'
Lauren - age 4

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'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' (what an image)
Karen - age 7

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'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.'
Jessica - age 8

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And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.
The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.
The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.
When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the littl e boy said,
'Nothing, I just helped him cry'

Monday, February 11, 2008

In memoriam...

Kotte Nagaviharaya Chief incumbent Ven. Madulawe Sobhitha Thera holding a special bana at the D.S.Senanayake College premises in remembrance of the seven college students, baseball coach and the two girls who lost their lives at the Fort Railway Station suicide blast last week.


Sunday, February 10, 2008

DS BaseBall Team Tragedy

DS Brothers - You are in our hearts forever...
The highly active Fort Railway station is somewhat deserted with an extended weekend holiday in the offing. It is unnaturally calm in this normally busy transport hub. On this lazy Sunday afternoon gun totting security personnel at every entry\exit point remind the travellers of the troubled times they are going through.

Security has been beefed up and troops are on red alert, With Sri Lanka at the doorstep of another landmark in its annals, in the form of their 60th independence anniversary which is to be flagged off with a grand celebration in a few hours.
Sixty years hence the struggle by our forefathers to gain freedom from the clutches of colonial rulers, another struggle is being waged, this time to free the nation from the clutches of terrorism.

In this backdrop the Fort Railway station and the general area resembles a mini fortress with armed guards at every nook and corner.

The time is 2.05 p.m, the train from Kandy arrives at the station and among the crowd are seven young baseball players and their coach from D.S. Senanayake college in Colombo, returning after a club match in Kandy.

There are heavy bags on their backs and menacing looking baseball bats in their hands. The young men in the prime of their lives move to the exit point, at the corner of the number three platform, laughing and joking with each other. They either did not see or did not take any notice of, a young woman who had a deadly secret: a suicide jacket strapped to her waist. In their eyes, she could have been just another passenger waiting to disembark. But she had no plan of ever going home.

The big clock overhead turns to 2.10, and stops its tick, tick as crows are the first ones to take flight in unison with the sound of the deadly blast, sending its shockwaves on unsuspecting, innocent bystanders.

The clock which stopped at 2.10 p.m would be repaired in the near future and its hands would weave back and forth once again. But those young hearts which stopped ticking at 2.10 p.m on February 03, 2008, would never tick again. The life journey they began with so much hope and dreams is shattered so cruelly, on the concrete floor of a railway station to appease the bloodlust of terrorists.

White balls lathered in red slowly roll on the concrete floor and shattered bats lie in the cold concrete, so are their bodies which have been decimated in their prime.
For Rajarathnem Radeeswaran (18) of Dematagoda the fate has had it's say. His life has been snatched away by an organisation which claims to be the very guardians of the community he represents.

The tears of his mother M.Wasantha is the same as his dear friend Thiwanka's mother from Dehiwela, both have lost their beloved sons and at what cost they ask ?
His Father Vijayan Rajaratnam who is in shock over his son's death has a baseball cap in his lap, and talks about his son's love for the American game, which had paved the way for him to get the nod in getting admission to the famed D.S. Senanayake college.
Young Eranga Chaturanga who resides next to his beloved college too has bid adieu to this world at a time when both his mother and father had sought greener pastures in the Middle East, to make their son's life more comfortable.

But alas they have to return home abandoning the hope of a brighter future for their loved one, as his life has been terminated by a cruel terror which has no regard for human life.

Baseball captain of DS Nadeera Jayawardene who missed that fateful journey speaks painfully about the demise of his colleagues, calling it as an irreparable loss. The pain would haunt the rest of his and his friends' lives.
He painfully recollects the memories and says "I was scheduled to join them but because it was not a college match and also because I had to attend some other matters I did not go".

According to Nadeera six of his team mates had returned on the previous day but the rest had stayed back to visit the historic sights in Kandy, unknowing that death lay waiting to snatch them away on their return.

Kolitha Kumara (19) from Hokandara and Supun Halalla of Angoda who were studying in the A\L Commerce class were best of buddies according to their friends, and had excelled not only in sports but in studies as well.
Alas both had their future dreams shattered as victims of a conflict in which they never took part.

Young Dinuth Priyasanka of Agalawatte who was staying at his aunt's house in Colombo was eagerly awaiting to commence his A\L studies in the Science stream and according to friends was aspiring to be a doctor.

His father had migrated to Middle East with the untimely death of his mother to make his two children Dinuth and his sister's lives more comfortable. But now the grief stricken father has to return home, with his dreams shattered to see his beloved son lying in a cold coffin, a victim of a cold blooded attack by a group which calls themselves 'freedom fighters'.

Freedom at what cost? Could anybody even with a semblance of humanity justify attacks on innocent schoolchildren and unsuspecting civilians, asks Uvidu Vidura a senior prefect at the D.S.senanayake College. Now the only thing left for us is to pay the highest honour and assist their bereaved families on behalf of our college, says Vidura giving voice to the DS student community, as the coffins of their colleagues are brought to the school hall one by one.

The very gates from which they came to school day after day has opened for one last time. But this time round the entry is not on foot, but over the shoulders of their weeping colleagues, with their youthful bodies wrapped in satin in a cold coffin.
The young baseball coach of DS, Malinda Arumadura (27) of Gandara would never see his one year old child and his wife Sadeshi, whom he married recently. His dreams of a happy family life too got shattered like his body on that concrete floor at Colombo Fort.

A weeping student in front of their colleagues' remains says this Nation has lost many innocent young lives. "I hope my friends would be the last. I hope the blood spilled by them would not be in vain."

And as one banner erected by students proclaimed

Let the white doves fly
Don't let anyone cry
End War by and by
Then no one will sigh






The Last Group Picture after the Kandy Tour



















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