Art of Living course- part I

In this super excited mood on thursday morning, I decided to write about everything I have been learning(to be frank- made to do) during this course.
OK, coming to talk about how this had all happened, like me of all things going for an art of living class thinking that it wud give a new twist to life or more of a change from the normal rudimentary routinue, I saw the article about the art of living class in times and read throught the same advertisement for almost a week before I could make up my mind that I should try out this course coz I have heard from one of my friend, Kasi that its a very effective course and can really rejunavate a person completely and bring a new perspective to the way of living. This thought motivated me further more that I must give it a shot. I put a mail to the aol for the registration and guess what??, I did this just the day before the registrations closed after more a week of contemplation.
After the mail, now it was the time for submission of form and paying the amount and yet again my busy lazy life prevented me from submitting the form. It needed another mail from AOL that prompted me to confirm on registration.

Finally, after multiple oscillations of my mind have I commited on going for the course.

No longer OPML sharing

Its exciting to see new features added now and then and that too with Google Apps. The recent update I have seen is from Google Reader team. Previously I had to import and export OPML files to share the RSS feeds among friends and these sometimes get overloaded and become pretty messy with folders.

With Google Reader, you can now share your feeds with friends and dont need to import those OPML files to read their feeds. Just read all the interesting feeds from you friends shares and go back to you well organized favorite feeds.

Out Bound Learning

I had been thinking of writing about my experiences during Team Out-bound learning program at PEGASUS. Its one place which I can't forget very easily and I could relate very closely to my stay in barracks during SSB selections.

The first time when I got mail about PEGASUS INSTITUTE OF EXCELLENCE, I was a lil disappointed hearing the sound of Institute and wondered why we chose such a place for an off site(I got used to the too usual outings, I guess I couldn't take it down so easily :) ). But incidentally, it was not supposed to be an offsite but a team building camp. Everyone in the team had their apprehensions on how it would be but everyone of us were equally excited.

The fun started from the moment we boarded the plane and the thrill started when we got on top of the van and tour was bumpier than ever before.

For the next two and half day, our apprehension turned to enthusiasm and nothing detered any one from participating even after bruises and blisters. We did trecking in the night among heavy bushes and rocks, again trekked the same hill blind folded on an other day. I have phobia of heights(Hypsiphobia - I googled for it before :) ) and I got over my inhibition and did grappling couple of times.


Every adventurous/thrilling activity was always followed by a rather prolonged and yet times boring review but there was alwasy some objective in the activity and learning from it.
Some of the Learnings that are usefull anytime in life and which definitely helps to carry forward ourself


Action Learning Cycle
Activity --> Reflection --> Learning --> Application

Habits to inculcate

• CHALLENGE INHIBITIONS
• QESTION HABIT - HOOKERS
• GRAPPLE WITH FEARS AND LEARN TO MANAGE THEM
• DO NOT HESITATE TO SAY 'YES' OR 'NO' WHEN NEEDED
• LISTEN ATTENTIVELY AND NOT SELECTIVELY
• TAKE AND GIVE FEED BACK AUTHENTICALLY AND SENSITIVELY
• GET IN TOUCH WITH FEELINGS / EMOTIONS AND EXPLORE THEIR TRIGGERS
• EXPRESS FEELINGS /EMOTIONS
• BE AS OPEN AS YOU CAN
• LOOK INWARD WHILE GOING OUTWARE

Finally, Remember that there is only a thin dividing line between feed back - judgement - advise - expectation - criticism

At the end of 3 days, everyone carried along wonderful memories, energy and some learnings.

I sort of missed out all pranks and miscief acts we did during this trip on purpose as those facts come under CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION and I can't reveal em as I signed the NDA :D

Thanks to Varma's SLR, we took some amazing pictures and we can go back and recollect some of those activities :)

HeadStart-2007

"When I am alone, I Google myself", a very true and common phenomenon amongst everyone
who uses Google. Ask people when and for what do you google and the answers would be as many as the pages in Google.
I have been thinking of blogging for quite a long time and finally decide today to give it a fresh start. Being a fulltime Googler is the most ultimate thing I am relishing right now eversince, I got converted from temp to fulltime on 20th Mar,07. To work with the company which I always dreamed off when I was in college is a very exciting thing and being it my first job is even more thrilling!!!

Carrying forward the fruitfull 8 months of learning and looking for even better days ahead!!