The Real Resolution?

Hello everyone! I know, It has been a long time since I have updated you guys. Hope you had a warm Christmas! 
This month has been a busy time for me, actually the busiest in the entire year. All that I had been wanting to do in life has finally started to happen. 
I hope you guys have checked my website out. If you haven't, please do. --> http://www.exercisemyway.net63.net/index.html . I want to reach out to as many souls as I can. This is just the smallest step I could take to start with.

People ask me, why I spend so much time in advising people about fitness. Well, the answer to that is, people don't realize the importance and the need for fitness. They fail to realize the fact that it could solve all their health and money problems. Hospitals will have lesser reservations and appointments. And the nation will be working a lot more efficiently. If you are laughing at this and find it utterly pointless, then deep down you know that you want to exercise but just find it too difficult to begin with. 

When you wake up in the morning, what is the first thought that occurs in your mind? That pretty much defines your day. Mine is: "What workout am I doing today?" Also, "What a beautiful morning it is." This positive energy always stays with me through the day and keeps me going. Do what you love, and love what you do. 

Always, make time for things that you love to do. Whether it is painting, or singing, or just playing an instrument, you should make sure that you find some time in your busy day for that one thing that you love to do. 
Mine is going for a long drive with my sister with loud music on, we scream our lungs out knowing that there is no one listening to us. Sadly, I can't do that in college.

All these small things make up an awesome day. And if all the days in your life are awesome, then your life is the best. Meet new people, learn new things, and have fun. Create something exciting and feel proud. Discover a shortcut to your favorite place in your city and feel happy. If a joke crosses your mind, let it out to the people around you and spread laughter. Feel contented. Go to a park and for once, don't listen to music, feel peaceful. If you hear the tune of your favorite song, no matter where you are, dance. Feel the freedom. If you love someone, let the person know how much you value him/her, feel the warmth. If you find your favorite chocolate in your bag, scream and let your excitement out, feel high. If you desire to do a hundred skips, go ahead and do it. Feel the satisfaction. Treat yourself.
Live for these small happy moments in life, which make up a big part of your story. Start writing yours today. :) Have a wonderful new year filled with new spirits and lots of parties. Happy 2014 folks!

Watch your back. Be alive!

Hi guys, here I am with yet another post. Now this is something that is just out of a growing concern for the safety of women runners in Bangalore, actually, pretty much any city.
I go for outdoor running on a daily basis. In the beginning I used to go around the city on the roads, but since I almost died in an accident once, I decided to limit it to the endless parks in the garden city. Presently, I go to this park that is around 20 minutes from my house, and is pretty big. There are people of all age groups who come there for different purposes. Majority are the old people who come for walking and chatting with the other oldies. Apart from these, there are all kinds of people out there who land up in the parks. I have seen girls who walk in wearing a pair of tight jeans and high heels and start walking around trying to exercise. I have seen guys who walk around conversating on their phones, and the tone of the conversation somehow convinces people that it has to be a woman on the other end. There are couples who come to the parks to sit and waste their time in trying to flirting with each other. And then, there are those weird creepy looking guys, whose motive seems to be just to give you those scary eye-gauging stares and drive you away.  This set of people is who you should look out for. 
There is always atleast one guy everyday whom I suspect to be following me or clicking my pictures or something like that. This is because, I have been made to believe that this world is a cruel place for women. Men are evil (Ofcourse not all). I hope you know about the ATM incident that took place in Bangalore last week. If you don't, google it. It is just so shocking. It shook my entire universe. Innocent people get killed, girls get raped. And this can just happen to anyone. All this makes life very insecure for women in cities, especially if you are like me, running in parks and wandering off on your own. And sadly, there is no particular solution. You have to look out for trouble and take care. In this, Impulse plays a big role. You should take immediate action even if you have the slightest of suspicion. 
And NEVER look back at a guy if he is staring at you. Because this kind of gives them something to use against you. Ignore and pretend like you don't know anything unless it gets serious. Always carry some weapon in your bag. This can be anything from a fork to a nail cutter. Even keys can come in handy. Just keep in mind that in this case, you should never think before acting. A second can save your life, a second can also take it away. So,use your time wisely, and be safe. 

Sweat to Fit into your Old Jeans.

First of all, I'm overwhelmed by the responses I'm getting from you guys. I love your mails. Keep them coming. :)

Today, let me talk about something that actually is a major part of my life but hasn't yet been written about. It is - Fitness. Fitness is literally a big part of my life. It's what I live by everyday. If you ask the people who live with me or who know me, they would probably call me a freak. According to them, I wake up in this super-zombie mode, put on my running shoes and shoot out of my window. Yes, we all have our own weird imaginations and theories.
So, getting back to the topic, ever since I started working out, my life has changed, and I'm doing serious talk here. Like seriously.
Don't believe me? What if I told you that I lost 11 kgs in a year? Yes, it's true. I'm not bull-shitting with you this time. I know you must have watched all sorts of  advertising for 'calorie burning belts and creams' and all kinds of crap. But trust me, there is no shortcut to fitness. It requires dedication and patience. A lot of patience.
I used to be this plump kid who was good-looking but just wasn't good enough. And then I met this amazing person, Loka. 
He was a real inspiration. I got to know that he is a marathoner and so are his parents. He told me all about running. Told me how I shouldn't have so much hatred towards it and how it's not so bad. I decided to try. And so I started out on this amazing journey of fitness and happiness. It has been four years now that I have been working out, and I have never felt better.
Most people think it's very cool to just go with the flow of today's gen, munching on lays and kurkure all the time and drinking alcohol. If even one person at the dinnertable says, "No sugar please", people stare at that person for a moment and then have a good laugh about it. But only you know the consequences of such a lifestyle. So, don't worry about  others, you do what you believe.The start of anything is always a discomfort. But that shouldn't stop you. When a person gets used to a certain thing, it becomes a habit and comes naturally. Following the same law of nature, exercise also becomes a habit. And when it does, it's the most amazing feeling in the world.
To many, starting an exercise routine comes with a hundred excuses. The list goes something like this:
1. I work through the night and thus can't wake up early in the morning to fit in exercise.
--> There are 24 hours in a day. Be honest to yourself and tell me how you cannot spend just one hour for working out.
2. Exercise is boring.
--> You can't hate all the forms of exercises! Find your area of interest : dance, swimming, skating, running, cycling, skipping, and ofcourse, gymming.
3. It's pointless. Anyway, I will gain weight at some point of my life. So why bother?
--> You will die at some point in your life, then why bother living?
...

No apples are needed to keep you away from the doctor. Try raising your heart beat instead, and feel superhuman :) This is probably one of the best things that has happened to me. If you already are a workout person, then you know what I'm talking about.
To those of you who are yet to experience it, a whole new world is waiting to be discovered, you just need to find a little bit of time and put in a little bit of effort. When you do, I promise you that you will come and kiss me for this. :P
Go ahead and have fun!

Meet my boyfriend! --Wait. Who?

Boyfriends. Who exactly is a boyfriend? Is he the one who used to help you build sand castles by the beach? Or is he the one who says cute things to you to spread a smile across your face?
The word means different things to different people. And I have met plenty of different people to have realised this fact and thus to have been able to put it across to you today.
When I was in fifth standard, I had a 'guy' best friend. I used to literally spend my entire day with him. We used to play together, laugh at silly things together, cry successively and I used to be the initiator most of the times, and used to do a zillion things. In some days, a new girl in school started spending more time with him, and I started losing out on him. This was the first time I ever felt what jealousy feels like. It was frustrating. I don't know if you can call it love, I don't know if you can call it a crush, but that's what I'm talking about here. I wouldn't categorize it in either one, but for you, it might have seemed like love.
Love is a complicated thing which very few succeed to understand. If you are in a relationship, it doesn't necessarily have to be about love always. Nowadays people date people for unreasonable and unexplainable things. There is no trust, no "lovey-dovey" feeling, no blowing-wind-in-your-hair feeling. It's just pure politics. And hey, if you are in love, don't misunderstand me. I'm just generalizing things. So, go easy on me. :)
You probably must be wondering how I can quote such things without having experienced.
You are wrong, stop thinking on that line right away.
I am probably the most experienced person you could turn to. I know it's nothing to brag about, but seriously, I could save you from getting into a lot of shit that I have already been into.
After much thought put into this, I have come to the realization that, rather than believing "Love is Life" which most of us newly-turned-adults tend to believe, we must look at it in a different perspective : "Life is Love".
Love is what you want. So make life the way you want it to be. Love its nature of bringing new experiences everyday, love its sweet memories, love it for its complexity and simplicity, love it for making you meet so many new wonderful people, Love it for letting you dream and for letting you be independent of someone to love you. You don't really need anyone to express their love for you if you realize your importance.
Ask yourself, why exactly do you have a boyfriend? What does he mean to you? Is it about love? Or is it just a feeling of love that you get from that person, that you feel cared for?
Love yourself, and everyone else will love you. :) You are beautiful however you are, you don't need anyone to tell you that. And you are special. Just look around into the real world, and you will find your path to your dreams.


P.S. This is for you pretty girls.

Learn Bull-Shitting from me.

Landed in Bangalore two days ago, and it seems like a month.
This city can be unbelievably annoying sometimes. 
Okay, so you probably are wondering why I have chosen such a heading for this post. Let me explain:
I reached here yesterday morning. The weather was heavenly, with a touch of winter breeze. I reached home and had a bowl of my favorite cereal. Then I decided to go on a long drive with my parents, which was again awesome.
I just felt like so relaxed and relieved that I was finally back home.
Everything in my life was going at its normal pace until evening. My sister got back home from school and tricked me into agreeing to go out somewhere.
We went to a mall on my scooty for a cup of hot chocolate. Then, two things happened:

1. Unfortunately, I don't have a good knowledge of parking. I parked my scooty in a no-parking area.
2. The hot chocolate sucked.

We had got a time frame of about an hour to get back home. It was already forty-five minutes since we had got there. So, we decided to leave, only to find that our scooty got towed. In the next ten minutes, we were standing in front of the police station. -_-

(Ofcourse we got it back+we were super late)

I had not yet recovered from this mini heart attack but the next morning decided to give me a serious one. I had to drop my sister to school. I quickly put on a jacket and slipped my phone and ipod in the pockets. 
Keeping in mind what had happened last night, I carefully kept my license with me and decided not to stop anywhere else.
I drop her and get back home. 
I keep the scooty keys in its place.
I keep my shoes in the shoe-rack.
I keep my license on my table.
I keep my ph--
Wait, my phone?

Yes, this is what happened. I dropped my so very precious phone somewhere on the streets. My heart stopped beating for more than a second.
All I could think of was, How could I! 
Anger, Confusion, Frustration, Irritation, Fear.

(Want to know the end? --> I kept calling and after half an hour a guy picked up and told me to take it from him and give him some cash.)

This, is the beginning of my vacation. I need to STOP bull-shitting around.

Funny moments that amaze me.

"Best things in the world are free"

These best things are all around you. You probably don't even realize it. Don't feel useless already, I didn't realize it either. But today, I know what these best things are in my life. And it makes me happy that I finally know their value. Yes, I am talking about friends, I am talking about family. 

I am experiencing a weird feeling, the feeling that you get when you leave your friends and go back home to your family. I never imagined that I would get such friends who would actually make me feel like family. And we never give this feeling much importance. But it deserves more than that.

Today as I was loading my friends' luggage into the cab, I didn't know whether I should hug them and wish them a great holiday, or tell them that I'm really going to miss being with them! The rain was just making it all the more emotional. Although I don't tell you that you guys really matter to me, here I am publishing it out to the world! I love you and you are nothing less than a family :) Anagha, Alekhya, Ananthalakshmi (probably the first time I'm calling out your actual names) 

It's funny how time flies by. I remember making my holiday plans a month back and wishing I could fast forward the time in between. But I guess I didn't need any superpower for that. This whole semester was just a blink. So many events, so many holidays, so much fun, and then there were exams, like a truckload of them. That's why they say, "Give it time and everything will pass". Time is magical.
I felt so happy seeing so many happy smiling laughing faces all around the campus. The "smile to make others happy" does work. :)
Just imagine, if this happiness actually came at the start of the sem rather than on the last day, the world would be a better place. If only everything could work the way we want it to, I'm sure we would do wonders. This gen has the power, damn right it does! So my fellow beings, let's take a step ahead, and do something new, something that will take us closer to our dreams. Spread the word! Let this month bring you lots of surprises.

Pre-Last-Exam-Post-Exam Excitement

Saturday. What a wonderful day. Writing a new post after more than a fortnight. So, let me not start by the summary of how my last week was.

Some days are just extra-ordinary. Today is a party day in my hostel, a day when people take a break from the usual exam pressure and chill out doing whatever they love to do and whatever they had to ban themselves from since exams started. Many plan on watching movies, catch up on their regular serials, go around to other rooms to socialize, and the rest sleep. And here I am, doing what I love doing, updating you guys with my over exciting life. :P

I am so excited that I am confused to the point that I do not know what to type next. And the following are the possible reasons:

1. I have my last exam day after tomorrow, after which I am travelling to the most beautiful place in the sweet little world of mine, to my sister, home. :)

2. I have a month filled with lots of excitement waiting for me. A journey that will probably change my life. And I am very passionately looking forward to it.

 Sometimes when you think too much about the future, you just get too carried away and lose your concentration on the present day, which is happening to me right now, and which most probably is happening to  many people here.  But irrespective of what or how much you think, it's not going to change anything until you act. You think you want something, you believe you want something, you realise you need something, you share your need for the need with someone, you do everything you can to get what you want ---> you feel like you have achieved everything in the world, you feel happy.

It takes just a few seconds for the world's greatest idea to occur to a human brain. What really makes the difference is how the brain of that human reacts to it and how he takes it forward to the world. There are yet innumerable undiscovered elements of technology that people have to explore. And this opportunity is given to the present batch of engineers and scientists, who are curious and excited to implement their own ideas for improving the life of the millions of people across the world. And this is the biggest reason for my super excitedness, as I belong to this set of engineers.
Can't wait to change the world. :)

Yes, I am ambitious. And yes, I am a little too much of a dreamer. But hey, dreams are the beginning of every wonderful journey. So, dream. It's free.
And work, it gives you freedom. And run, it adds to your lovely life a couple of extra years. ;)

Merry time = Exam time?

It is that time of the year again when engineering kids get their textbooks out of the cobwebs and start underlining every line they read. Yes, the end semester exams are here (a week away). With the goal of passing in all the subjects,  these kids drill themselves for a week with increasing order of intensity, hoping to achieve their goals. Some get away with this, while many unfortunate others re-book their tickets to give the supplementary exams, that happen shortly after the semester exams. This is the usual drill that every student, oh let me re-phrase that, every Engineering student, goes through. 

It is a misconception in a large fraction of the society that engineering = being jobless for four years and taking home a degree. We, as students, understand the torment on the kids' mental and physical health, (in my college, it includes spiritual also). So people, Stop giving those "m-e-h" looks when someone tells you they are doing engineering. Instead, you shoud say, "Brave, proud of you". 
Anyway, I'm not against the torture that we go through, it is needed. We try, we fail, we learn, we try again, we fail again, we learn more, but, it's  not an infinite loop. At the end, we come out as experienced and successful scholars who change the world and make it a better place to live in for the rest of the population. 

Alright I deviated a bit in the last paragraph :P Let me come back to the topic. 
Exam days have been the most amazing days of my life. Stop giving those looks, I'm serious. We get the world's most creative ideas while studying for examinations. My friends and I make a huge to-do list that we always plan to implement after exams. We sing, we dance, we eat (a lot), we crack lame jokes, we roam around for no reason, and, when we are bored, we study. Yes that's how it is. And the feeling after an exam is priceless, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So, exam time doesn't suck that much, enjoy it, it's only for a few days. ;) Good luck to all the future engineers! 

Gearing up for GSoC : #Tknow

Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers students stipends for spending their summer writing code for open source projects that benefits humanity. There are GSoC meetings happening around the different time zones, where the experienced guys introduce the idea of open source and a bit about GSoC to the newbies. 

The tech{know}logy club (which is the coolest club of my college) also conducted a GSoC meet up on 9th November, 13. The crowd turn up was around 60, majorly from computer science and IT. The organisors were Sarup, Romil, Aravind(Dult), Archit, Manjush, Madhusudhan and some others.
It was organised really well. They created an IRC channel and mailing list for the meet where students could ask anything and get their queries cleared. Also, lots of google goodies were distributed to keep the spirit high. :)
A nice description about GSoC was given by Sarup. Being a GSoCer himself, he has had a lot of experience and hence, he had the audience listening to everything that he had to say.  There were a lot of people in the house who were completely new to open source, so a brief introduction was given about open source programming. Many curious and excited students shared what skills they had and asked about what they could start working with. Archit and Arvind cleared some other usual misconceptions that people have about hacking and open source. And Manjush was busy handling the mailing list and channel and the Git requests.

Throughout the meet, people were logged into the IRC channel, posting comments and queries. The last discussion was about Git and Github. Students installed Git on their laptops and created their own Github accounts after which they were guided through the usage of Git. This is how everyone got a hang of what open source actually is. Romil was walking around everywhere(mainly the girls :P) clearing all the doubts about the whole installation and usage process. Sarup gave a list of all the sites that could be useful for learning more and contributing to open source. 

After this event, I went around asking people for their feedback. People loved it and I'm sure that they found it as useful as I did. Although the meet up was a success, not many girls turned up. I don't understand why most of the open source contributers come from the male population. Women must stand up for such events. From now, this would be something I will work on improving. Apart from that, I think things went on pretty smooth. :) And that was the last activity of the Tknow club for the semester! 
Follow us on https://twitter.com/WeAreTknow

Coming soon: Change of the millenium

While we grew up in the 90's with superheroes superman, batman, spiderman and powerpuff girls, the kids of this decade love the current tech-dream superhero: Ironman. Ironman has become so popular everywhere that kids want ironman costumes for their birthdays. However, to us, the techies, it is a whole different dream that we want to achieve. This movie literally takes us to the future of mankind, ruled by talking robots and flying screens. But the question that we must ask ourselves is, is this ever going to happen? Well, it really is upto us. If I step into this field on the right path, I am sure I would give my life to make the best of everything. I would have my own Jarvis and I would be living in a penthouse talking to my hundreds of robots. That is everyone's fantasy.

To begin with, people around the world are working on some very cool things like face recognition, gesture recognition, speech recognition etc that form the basis of complex robotic structures. The screens that are shown in ironman are just a step away as that can easily be achieved by creative coding. Technology is improving so fast that it is becoming difficult to keep track of even most of the new software realeases. To keep up, you just have to be in the present, keep your ears and eyes open, and work. 

I think robotics is the next big thing. Presently, from our country,  not many colleges promote it (sadly my college being one among them). Students who are really interested in this field should work together and create the unimaginable. 

The future as I see it: I wake up with an alarm telling me to wake up. A screen tells and shows me the temperature and weather outside, and shows me my workout schedule for the day. I run on my treadmill with virtual environment (something that I will work on), my version of Jarvis would give me the schedule for the day and keep me company all the time. No more heavy laptops. Just a screen that seems to pop up from nowhere as soon as you give a voice command. All this with gadgets like the google glass and the driverless car. The driverless car is just the most amazing innovation, not having to stress yourself in raging traffic(especially in my country). I think the google glass needs to be worked on a little bit more. But anyway, this is how my future is going to be, pretty confident about it. 

How do you see your future? Take a minute, and Think about it.      

Its OK to be CRAZY

Have you ever thought of a world without the soulful tunes of a guitar? Or the art of expressing oneself through dance? It would be a rather saddening life, not worth its beautiful pile of problems.

Every now and then even the busiest people feel the need to loosen up and let go. I must say, even though I am not the busiest person around, I find it difficult to continue my day in the same pace all the time. I have my highs and lows, in fact, all of us do. We just react in different ways. Some decide to ignore how they feel and force themselves with their busy schedules, while some just cannot find a convincing enough answer to why they should not listen to their heart and care about how they are feeling.

In my opinion, no matter what a person chooses to do with his day, he should be happy and satisfied. It depends on the person and his control over his actions and thoughts. For example, I am not the kind of person who would think twice before having a night out with my friends, regardless of what I have the next day (unless it is an end-sem exam, in which case my friends wouldn't either). My policy: I am the master of my life. Unless it is beyond legal boundaries, I will do what I want and however I want it and nobody can change or influence that. Ofcourse you make mistakes on the way and then learn from them but that's how it is supposed to be. Life sucks if you live by the advices and warnings that you hear, your life should be defined by yourself. So make it a little entertaining, a little crazy :) and do everything that you WANT to do. No regrets. Life (as a human) happens just once.     

Life after Fedora happened to me.

Like most of the kids, I have grown up with windows as my operating system. I didn't even know there were other systems available until I got to college! Yes, I have had a very non-techie life. Even though my dad is the best computer science teacher I have ever come across, I had no idea what all this is actually about, never cared to ask him. First year of college passed by and I was done with an introductory course in C. The beginning to this new world of programming was not very pleasant, as one would expect. As second year started, I came across C++ and Java. C++ taught me some cool things. Athough I can't say it is better than Java, it is an awesome language for creative coding, something which I am really interested in. Ofcourse I have my  inspirations. Sarup Banskota, currently in 3rd yr CSE, is a designer, and has been a GSoC student. He is truly an inspiration to me because he always does whatever he actually finds interesting. And he loves what he does. The spirit and energy to do something big, that is what makes the difference. He is part of the fedora team now. That is one of the ways I came to know about fedora. I had heard about it before, but never had the courage to get rid of windows and install linux. Gradually I got more and more interested and my desire to switch to a linux-based OS grew everyday. Finally one day I decided that I will ditch the cool looking windows 8 and switch to fedora. Even though most people think Ubuntu is the best linux OS, I favored Fedora(partly because of Sarup). In the starting few days, I had some problems installing new software, using the terminal, getting introduced to repositories and the most imporatant thing, to open source. But like I had heard about fedora, I started falling in love with it. Now whenever I am not with my laptop, or in class, I just keep thinking about the stuff that I would do on my laptop after I get back to the room. Let me tell you, this feeling is awesome :) because you actually are so motivated to learn new cool stuff everyday! Proud to be a fedora-lover. \m/ (Can't wait for the alpha fedora-20!)

Rain Rain Please Don't Go Away

What a beautiful Sunday. Just like they describe it in novels, a lazy morning(for normal ppl, for me, includes gym & washing clothes), a pleasant sunny afternoon and a breezy cool evening. I had a rather fulfilling day I should say. I got my dongle back to work on my laptop, successfully downloaded some software that I wanted and searched on the net for summer internships that I can apply for. Truly is a lot of work that I did, leaves me feeling happy. Tomorrow will be a long and busy day. Hoping for the best.

Missing out on my Favorite Festival

Hi everyone. I wish all of you guys a very happy Diwali. Sadly I couldn't go home this time to celebrate it. So here I am, sitting in my room all day munching on some crap and breaking my head with the digital book(not even my book I guess). Once in a while I look out of the window, hear the crackers, and wonder what it would be like to be a bird and fly around the rockets glowing and sparkling in the sky, free from everything, free from the insane world. Feel peaceful for a moment, again disturbed by the digital book on my lap. Usually I do not do something unless I feel like doing it, but with the end sem nearing, I think I should start listening to my head a little more than my heart. This is my first post on my blog. I wanted to have my own blog so since I was bored, finally created one :) Look out for more!