Announcing the end of this blog.

Its been quite a long journey since I started this blog. I think I have made it through different shades of my personality, still many emotions left unwritten. Nevertheless, this serves the purpose. Having said that, I feel that this voyage must come to a stop. This thus is the last post.

“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps "Oh look at that!" Then- whoosh, and I'm gone...and they'll never see anything like it ever again... and they won't be able to forget me- ever.” - Jim Morrison

Goodbye all!

Where's your identity?

We have seen all our lives people leading the race, ahead of us, going for something as lowly as success. The brightest of brains falling captives into the hands of the so called industry. A phenomenon I describe as the "smartest brains losing their identity", when they choose a career giving money more value than it should be given.

And people do take pride in being associated with superior entities. Company 'X' for instance. Who am I? I work for company 'X' that pays me M lacs of money p/a! Thats it, and thats all that is to it. People seldom ask themselves a very simple question..."In a crowd of million people, who am I"? A writer, musician, social worker. Do people even recognize me? Do I even have an identity of my own or did I just got lost somewhere during my life? Do I want all my life to be trapped in a confined space, with no individuality whatsoever at all? Do I really want this from me? Don't I want to break free....

It would have been a wondrous world if every individual realized what he was born to do, if every individual realized what his precious mind is capable of achieving and at least tried to put that into effect. Each is born with a talent that makes him special, unique and different from others. All that is required is to realize what that special ingredient is in you.

PS: Now don't expect me to set an example !

The value of realization, the realization of value.

The perception of value/worth of things is different for different people. Time for instance is something different people perceive differently. Time flies by on rosy wings when we are with friends, doing things we like barely realizing that each minute feels like a day for a prisoner waiting for his freedom. The difference of perception is rather shameful when in comes to money. The following video explains everything.

Teaching: The way I don't like it.

We had discussions with our friends, asking of their opinion as to how professors should teach and what should be their reaction to low attendance. Their opinion was something like this (if they would become a prof. ) :

• Give loads of assignment, quizzes and make attendance compulsory. Only then will students learn. Penalize for not coming to class.
• Make exams very hard. They should pay for not coming to the class. Attendance should be mandatory, carrying some weightage. Take surprise quizzes when attendance is low.

My opinion differs from both, not for assignments, but in attendance. As far as assignments are concerned, assignments do help understand what you are teaching so the quantity of assignments should be at least that what is necessary to cover each individual topic if not in plenty. The more the better. The problem lies in the second aspect. This is where I stand against many professors, and wannabes, that attendance should NOT be compulsory. The arguments that people give in favour is that

• If attendance is not compulsory, students will not come and hence will not learn.
• I can earn 10 times if I go to industry, so when I teach I want students attending lectures. If they don't then its insulting for me. (Actual reason given by a prof)

All those sound logical, but they are nothing more that hollow statements, carrying no weight at all. Answer these 2 questions and you will know why I dislike compulsory attendance.

1. When you say attendance should be compulsory, you implicitly make a claim that students will not be able to learn without your help. Unless you explain them, they won't be able to figure out what the topic is about. Is that true? I don't think so. There are many students who prefer to study alone. They cannot grasp concepts in a lecture simply because its a lecture. The pace doesn't suits them, the way it is taught, or whatever the reason may be! They prefer to figure out the stuff by themselves. Still many others are able to outperform even without attending a single lecture. What good are you doing by forcing such students to come to class? There are several teaching and learning styles and if they mismatch, its a problem. (refer wiki for the styles)
2. When you assign some weightage or use other methods to force students come to class, aren't you saying it yourself that your way of teaching is not effective enough, not something that students would love to be a part of? Isn't that a fault in your teaching that you are trying to hide by making attendance compulsory. You should instead improve your way of teaching.

Such actions, at least I think, do not suit a teacher. As a teacher, my job is NOT to pester students and make them pay. My job is to teach. You have the study material with you. Any doubts, I will clarify them. Today the strength is low, very good! I can give personal attention to students. You think you can study yourself? Very good indeed. Go do it. All the imperfect responses you make will teach you even more than what I can. You would not just know how to do a thing, solve a problem, but also know several other ways of not doing a thing. What's the point of assigning weightage to attendance. The system is flexible enough to accommodate and suit every students learning style, without leaving anyone at a disadvantage. Fair for both, those who want to "learn" and those who don't want to "study".

That's how it should be. Things should be fair. They should be flexible. From my side its all that I can do. As far as the other side is concerned, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. They are grown up kids, they know what they are doing. I shouldn't make it unfair for anyone.

...from grains lost in time...

Look at that hourglass. Isn't it one of the most...deceptive...thing you've ever seen? There's sand in the upper half, and some in the lower. No one knows where it came from! All is known is that its there. Flip the hourglass and it all begins. A grain passes through the narrow passage (connecting tube). It falls...falls...falls and hits the other side. Then another, and another, and yet another....And all you see are grains of sands falling one after the another, after another! All destined the same. And then falls the last one. What was in the top, is now in the bottom. What was to be future, has become the past and you witnessed it. What now? Flip it again and it starts all over again, all from the beginning.

Sadly enough, life is not an hourglass you can flip to start over again. What was in the top for you to make use of it, you let that fall in front of your eyes, just to realize...its gone. What if I tried to hold it in my hands? It would still flee. There's nothing I can to to hold back time. Time is fleeting, flies sooner than one can imagine. All we can do is live it.

“Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.” Value time. "Don't count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count". Its not the grains of sand that are falling, its you! Look beyond the deception!

I, Me and Myself

Me: So finally its time.

Myself: I am glad it is....

Me: So lets start it. Well you know what it would be? Don't you?

Myself: Of course. Lets go with it!

Me: Favourite colour, food, movie, novel, etc, you got the ques...Didn't you?

Myself: Well, colour would be blue, food pizza, movie Black Hawk Dawn, novel none!

Me: Why no novels?

Myself: Well they are quite loooong and by the time I finish reading say about 20%, I am pretty bored. Its better to watch it when they make a movie based on it. Saves a lot of time!

Me: And what about music?

Myself: Music is a different story altogether. Firstly I don't have a so called "best" for music, defined by none of album, artist, genre, etc. I hear nearly all kind of music. Secondly, every song is kind of special to me. Its like, each of them caught my ear, the very first time I heard them. So I now I have a pretty huge collection of songs for all moods which is still growing...

Me: Okay I get it :P So now tell me about your hobbies.

Myself: Hobbies. Well they change over time. Quite a few years back, I used to be a gamer. I still have a bit of that left in me. Then started playing minesweeper and other puzzles. Then started playing guitar and so today, I spend most of my time learning guitar.

Me: :O That's cool. Tell me more about guitar as such.

Myself: Well it started with trying my hands on the guitar of a friend and applying the logic I used on Casio and Viola! I could play something. So I bought one of my own and learnt all things from a website called www.cyberfret.com. Then after the basic knowledge, switched to youtube for lessons and now I just read tablatures using a software called GuitarPro. That's how I learnt. No teacher ;)

Me: So how do you manage all those things?

Myself: Managing all these. for me, is all about following "highest priority first".

Me: :O And do you mind explaining what that means?

Myself: Its like "You wanna do something? Do it!" Who cares about what happens later. Today you wanna do it, so do it. Who knows tomorrow you'd change your mind and wouldn't wanna do the exact same thing, and some time later, you'd wonder "It really would have been wonderful had I done that then...". So bottom line: "Follow your heart"

Me: Don't you think you'd lose the interest in it after some time if you go after it with all that passion?

Myself: Nice point. I have heard many people say "You really shouldn't do all at once. You should save some for the future". But honestly speaking, that's not how I work. That's not how I see it. What's the point of doing things just for the sake of it? If I wanna do something, I'll do it properly, and then later I can do other things, all with the same passion.

Me: So it means you don't have a schedule.

Myself: Absolutely. I just don't like following a schedule. I don't know about promises, but schedules are meant to be broken, or rather not adhere to.

Me: Besides these, how do you spend your time?

Myself: I'd be sleeping, taking a nap, if I am not watching cartoons, listening to music, or maybe studying.

Me: Did I just heard cartoons? ;P

Myself: Well yes you did. What could be better than watching Tom & Jerry, Duck Tales, Tale Spin and many others, and still feel that you're a kid at heart? And when you wanna see something better, anime serves the variety as well. DBZ and bleach were brilliant. I don't watch them over and over again....but watching all of these, with my friends, was a great experience.

Me: One last question. Why do you blog?

Myself: Honestly speaking, blogging is one of the crappiest thing a person can do. Blogs serve no purpose whatsoever unless they are like, news blogs, event blogs, content specific, or meant for a specific thing. So yes, my blogging is indeed a waste of time! But still, Its a nice collection of some thought provoking articles, having some depth, for people who are kind of interested or appreciate such stuff. They are most welcome to have a look at it. For others, maybe you should go somewhere else, where you may get a taste of funny, light-hearted, and other more enjoyable topics! Superficial maybe. That's it.

Me: I think I am done asking....Do you have any to ask?

I: Yesssss. I have a lot to ask. Finally its my turn! Yeeeee.

Myself: :)

I: Which were your favourite computer games?

Myself: GTA:VC, COD4 nd COD5, POP, and DMC. Those are top notch. And burnout too!

I: Okay! Crack a joke!

Myself: NOW?

I: Of course now ;)

Myself: Well I have two in mind. You remember "I missed" one, or "I told you not to go" one??

I: :O Yes I do, Okay then leave it. ;) Here's the next question: Can you dance?

Myself: :O From where did that came? Of course I can't, ball-dancing is a different thing though ;)

I: hehe. Can you sing?

Myself: :O I'm trying to learn singing with the guitar.

I: And can you...

Myself: Okay! You need to stop asking arbit questions ;P

I: :D

Myself: We'll continue with this some other day. You can ask some more arbit questions then, but now I really have to go. I have some important work to do.

I: Okay! Go learn ball dancing. And singing too ;P

Myself: ^-^

I: BTW, I would want to go out for a walk with you, maybe for a lunch/dinner or so. Tell me when you are free.

Myself: Really? You really wanna go? OK then lets go now.

I: But you had some important work...

Myself: Aah. No problem! I can manage that. Screw the work for now. Lets go! :)

I: Yeeee :D

Myself: Me, why don't you join us?

Me: Sure. It would be great to see myself and I with me. After both of you. Btw, we 3 have been together....where have the other two of us been???

Myself: Hmm...Now that you've said it, I wonder what they're up to! They must be somewhere else. Leave'em for some other time. Today its just the three of us....

How to be a good teacher.

To be able to understand that, you first need to know how to be a bad teacher. Consider the following conversation (based on an actual incident):

Student: Sir, I have a doubt. Why can't we...

Teacher: Do you know about X ?

Student: I'm sorry I don't. (with regret) But why can't we do that if we go by this, "...."(tries to explain)

Teacher: Do you know about Y ? (frustrated)

Student: I'm sorry, neither that. I guess the real problem is that I don't know the terms you are talking about.(more regret)

Teacher: How can I tell that when you don't know a thing about anything? What do you do to improve your knowledge? When you want to know about this you got to have a basic knowledge of something. This is not what you expect from a student of your age. (frustration and anger)

Student: ...speechless...(Thinking I really shouldn't have asked him) Sir, do you want me to learn about them first? (tries to withdraw)

Teacher: I just want this to get over with, give you grades and let you go!(extreme frustration)

Student: ...puzzled...

So what went wrong? First identify the following:

1. The student is willing to get his doubts clarified, thereby increasing the frustration.
2. The student is curious to know about things he doesn't know, but asking questions seems to frustrate the teacher.
3. The teacher is unwilling to get down to the student's level and explain.
4. The teacher never answered the real question "why can't we..."
5. Remarks like the last one are rude, outrageous, disgusting and can have a negative impact.

The wrong on teacher's side is that he could have replied in variety of ways and made an attempt to explain the answer. Some are:

• Student: Sir, I have a doubt. Why can't we... Teacher: That's because...
• Student: I don't know about X. Teacher: Okay. So then I need to explain what X is. Well X is nothing but ....
• Student: Sir, do you want me to learn about them first? Teacher: Yes. That will explain why can't we do that. So read about A,B, ...

As we see, the whole idea is not to make the student realize that he knows nothing and he is a fool. The attempt is to first understand where the student has a problem and then try to correct him and explain it to him. If he is unable to grasp that, then present the solution in a simpler way. And if still he is unable to understand, the provide him the grounds and show him the way that he should follow. And not get frustrated over such petty matters. Its in realizing that your getting frustrated or angry will make you less approachable.

Its sad how some teachers just don't realize this. Teaching is an art, and more than that, an art that requires patience and will. You just can't go to a plant and get angry as to why ain't its branches blossomed with flowers and laden with fruits. You have to give it water and wait for it to grow to become a tree. That's how teaching should be. And not just teaching, but many day to day things.

We all must have heard the classic analogy between a potter and a teacher. A potter slaps, changes and bends the pottery from outside but also provides support from the inside, concerned as to not break it, and to give it the right shape. What good are you if you can't provide that support...That's what separates a good teacher from others.

Inspiration: "How to have a fruitless debate" - Ethical Toolbox by Anthony Weston.