cooking

I feel like I'm losing my "good cook" instincts. Nothing I make tastes great anymore. It's all a little meh... To get my groove back, I have promised myself that I will try something new in my kitchen every week or every ten days. Let's see how it goes.

I will also get nice fresh vegetables this week from farm fresh.

new lessons

1. most of us need all the help we can get so if someone is offering some advice or help, shut up and take it. You can determine later, whether you can use it or not.
2. How you look matters. clean toenails, fingers and nice clothes matter more than you think. At least they mattered more than I thought they did.
3. If you have an opinion, speak up. people who speak up are more noticed than the quiet "intelligent" types. no one will know how intelligent you are if you don't speak up.
4. if you have ideas and dreams, start working on them. it's never too early or too late.
5. learn to be alone without feeling lonely
6. de-clutter your life. it helps you start getting things done. this means negative friends, clothes that you don't wear, shoes you don't need etc.
7. most people have more to offer than we give them credit for. give people a chance.
8. compliments have power. give and receive compliments with grace and generosity.
9. read. it's important to know what's going on in the world even if it doesn't affect you. makes you smarter.
10. listen to both sides of the argument. learn to take criticism even if it seems unfair.
11. ask for feedback regularly. when the boss gives you feedback, it might be too late to correct certain things.

Lady Gaga feels pre-judged by Norwegian journalist (09/07/30)

End of first year

The first year MBA experience was just amazing. I am so glad that I picked I the school I'm attending. I've never felt this "in place" since high school. I have made friends with people very different from me and I have learnt to respect ideas very different from my own. I now know what it means to disagree without being disagreeable. I miss my family of course but I know I made the right choice. I would have been discontent if I had stayed back. Most people want to see the world during their vacation. I want to experience the world and to do this I must live in different places.
I have also become unapologetic about who I am. I have also learnt that most of us know what are weaknesses are instinctively but to know what your strengths are, is to discover yourself.
My MBA experience has been a happy one.

needs to be read

the economist

Everyone makes fun of idealists... What's wrong in thinking that you can change the world. A little more optimism and a little less cynicism makes the world a better place

We should care

I'm someone who doesn't actually care what other people think of me. I just do whatever it is that makes me happy. Funnily, I'm not selfish so this doesn't affect the people I care about in any negative sense. However, I do care about what people know and understand about the world in general. When the Buddhist monks were protesting peacefully in Myanmar and the junta brutally beat them up, I almost cried. I think I give back just by helping people around me understand that there is more to the world than the little safe universes we create for ourselves and someday I would like to do something more concrete. Until then, this will do.
Today I realized that a lot of people think that poverty is something that people bring upon themselves. This angers me. Yes, you can get out of poverty. My own father did. However, a lot depends on the society and country you born in. There should be something to get out to. A lot of people live the way they do and resort to the things they do, because they know of nothing better.
These days, I've been reading a lot about Africa. I read What is the What by Dave Eggers, I read Say you are one of them and watched a couple of really cool videos. A lot of countries in Africa are desperately poor and sick and are under oppressive and corrupt regimes. These are not problems they created for themselves. These are problems they inherited, when the Europeans left them with hastily drawn boundaries, insensitive and corrupt governments and newly discovered resources. Yes, every nation is responsible for its own destiny. However, the world has a responsibility too. when countries give these corrupt governments arms in exchange for allwoing them to mine, it is immoral. When nations are poor are desperate, they become breeding grounds for hatred and terrorism and we all end up paying a terrible price. We all have to care about the world. We don't have a choice.

A rant

What happens when we see or learn of something that we don't necessarily like? If we know that this new information is correct, we can:

1. shut out the information and pretend we never heard it.

2. Try to learn a little bit more, and see if there is anything you can do to change it

3. or be bull headed that the things you learn and see are correct.

As an Indian, suppose someone said that the number of dowry deaths in my country are disturbingly high and i didn't know this, before the person told me.

I can

1. pretend that this is absolutely false

2. Acknowledge the problem and see what I can do to fix it

3. or say that this is how it has been for centuries now and hence this must be right.

You would think a majority of people as highly educated and "well-informed" as a class of MBAs in a world class business school, would chose option 2. but sadly today, i learnt that well-informed or not, MBA or not, most people choose to react to negative information about their countries, societies and religion either by shutting it out or reacting extremely defensively.

What's my point? Well, nothing really. I just want people to be a little more open minded.

For the first time in my life, i think being intelligent is an absolute f...ing waste