A year goes by(e)

What A year!

2011 was eventful in many ways. I went through major changes with people, places and life. Some have walked in with a lot of smiles. Some have walked out with memories. Some places took new meanings. Some others remain, retaining their magic. New lessons everyday. New thoughts, new emotions. Its been a wonderful ride so far.

Everyday I feel thankful for what I have, thankful for whose relationships I have been blessed with, thankful for the sun, thankful for the moon, thankful for the sky, thankful for the trees, thankful for the food, thankful for the joy. Thankful for everything so far. Thankful for everything that dint happen so far. It is best the way it is!

This year, I hope to learn more, to grow, to forge new ties, to make a change, to be.

By the end of 2012,

I would have attained the aatma of my civil engineering degree! (my own definition of it)
I would have completed 10 paintings!
I would have played a decent amount of tennis!
I would have said thankyou everyday!
I would have smiled more!
I would have let go more!

I will recollect all this and more on the 31st of next Dec :)

To love, laughter and life
To a wonderful year

Stripped Walls

Its a countdown to get home. 5 more days to inexhaustible unlimited supply of hugs and love.

I decided I would pack slowly without straining myself in one day as is practice. I started off with stripping my walls down. I had written earlier here about my room and all the love I derive from it. I was going feed off the living sources of love putting the memories to a spell of break. Today it was time to put those memories into a folder for a newer and more hopeful semester.

Careful tugging of the tape that held the photos to the wall, making sure little pieces of plaster dint come off. Pinching blue tack and securing the notes carrying life lessons. A bend this way, a bend that way to straighten the photos. Plucking of board pins holding movie tickets at GV, boarding pass of first flight to uni, amma's love note, solution to rubik's cube and other romances of everyday life.

Stripping was done. I put them inside my folder and cleared the balls of tape and tack.

One look around the room and it hit me. These tiny pieces of paper were coping a multitude of things for me. They bestowed images on me and polished up everything that was missing.

The room looked eerie. Like a place that had no life. The walls alone had supplied life for the room.

And then again, its funny. How in instances like this we pin our hopes on inanimate things, and in some others even animate people wont do.

The hippies

I am listening to The Dewarists.

They resemble the hippies to me. A bunch of talented professionals from various strata of the music world come together in Indian cities and create awesome mind blowing compositions. Its interesting how we can create beautiful things from disconnected worlds. A deep lesson if you ask me!

One of my favourite songs Maaya by Indian Ocean and Mohit Chauhan

Love

You only lose what you love - and you often love what you lose.

I read this on a friend's facebook. Very beautiful and very deep I thought. I am going to just speak for myself. I always seem to be running away from what I love. I probably took the old Tamil saying a tad too serious. 'Dushtanai kandaal dhoora vilaghu' (read 'When you see an enemy, stay away from him'). Enemy is analogical to a lot of things. Be it choosing my course, parents or boys. 

So, how do you draw the line between loving and losing? I havnt figured out the answer, but I'll be sure to tell you when I do. 

Resume writing!

Its the half year mark of third year at uni. Time to stop fooling around and get serious about life after uni. People keep popping the 'What are you going to do when you graduate?' question. To add on to the fire, almost all my close friends are going to be interning next semester.


All this made really nervous about what I should do next! So, I decided to take the first step of the journey. Make a clean resume!


I knew I could count on one person for that! He is a close friend who triples up as a mentor and family. I sent him my resume & CV and asked him to review it for me. That was the beginning of a wonderful learning experience! Every time I sent him a version he'd send it back to me with improvements. The fact that it was scanned and remarked on with a pencil somehow hammered the suggestions deep into my head. We went through a week of 10-12 cycles of review and in the end came out my resume. Something I am immensely proud of now! I also took the help of some other friends who helped me get different points of view. The effort and thought processing we put in made oodles of difference to the document.


In all it was a really interesting ride, with a lot of awing about the importance of having a clean resume.


Some learnings to remember -

1) Patience - I learnt the importance of waiting for things to shape-up. I am a very distracted person. It takes great love for work and motivation to keep myself at it. I always hurry thing up in the end. This time though, I waited for it. I learnt to go along with it and realize the wonderful journey/outcome. Also, from my friend. He was extremely patient with me that one week! With all the corporate relationships he is used to, I thought it was really encouraging when he waited for me to learn. Very grateful for that!

2) While 'too many cooks spoil the broth',  the master cook can always handle the broth taking all the suggestions of the other cooks - I have always been better at working by myself, doing my thing. This time though I worked with three other people! Initially I took every bit of advice and blindly changed things on the document. As the reviews increased though I learnt to negotiate. To decide which I wanted to change, which I dint. If I had done this all by myself, I know that it would have remained Dhanya_Resume_v1.pdf. This is actually my biggest learning I would say. I learnt the importance of discussion and team work, in a way. 

3) To each his own - Just like every person has a unique fingerprint, every person has a unique view/opinion on things. I could see how each one of us noticed various aspects of the document. How we saw the words. What the words meant to us. This was a very deep learning. Having such varied opinion on things, I wonder how we even manage to run things in the world this way. I guess thats where compromise comes in. 

4) Sweat on details - Every space, every comma, every dot, matters. An achievement may not seem big to me in relativity, while on the contrary it might be something big to someone else'e eyes. It is essential to analyze a detail from the hirer's point of view and to try judging their understanding.

5) Easy on the eye, faster to the head - Formatting anything and making it cohesive makes life so much better. Personally, I like to keep things ordered and clean. I realized its important to extend it to every inch of life! 

Now I am all set for the next step. 'Looking' phase. Fingers crossed on this one to make it to where I want to go!