Indian education kills

Everyone knows the Indian education system sucks when it comes to exams and the grading of students by their marks. The recent spate of suicides by students all over the country is an indication of what happens when marks are giving so much importance than the education of a student.

Parents should be blamed for putting much pressure on their children. In trying to keep up with the ever increasing competition (in scoring good marks), children lose their childhood and peace of mind. Stress is a killer disease for all ages and it has a very significant impact on the minds of children. Kids are made to run for tutions and classes the entire day. The tension just keeps on increasing from school, the 10th, 12th, so on and so forth.

We are always obsessed with marks and percentages. Parents who want their children to do well in life get stuck to making their children into doctors or engineers. They pressurize their kids to do well in school. Every child cannot score 90+ percentages. The schools also should be blamed. The kids who score well are placed on pedestals. The kids who are unsuccessful in scoring marks are made to feel inferior with red marks on their reports, disrespect, etc.

One of the ways to be adopted it to do away with the marking system. Instead of teaching them to mug, children should be educated with knowledge. Knowledge not just about physics, maths, chemistry, english or marathi. But also knowledge they can use to cope with their life when they venture out into the world. More emphasis should be placed on the development of the child in all aspects like education, sports, arts, etc.

Some level of understanding is growing among parents who have realized that education is something that can be put to use and not just mugging. Schools have started realizing the importance of the all round development of children. But that is occurring among the affluent, autonomous schools. The education provided by the government aided schools and colleges still continue to sit in the comfort of deciding student's fate by how much they can memorize and put on paper. Hopefully, the media which is helping people realize this folly, should be able to bring about at least some changes in our education system.

Eskimos and the wolves

I went to church today so that I can save some morning time tomorrow. Holy week has started with Good Friday and Easter this week.

Today's sermon was short and sweet; Eskimos and the wolves.

When Eskimos would want to hunt down wolves which would kill their cattle, they would take sharp swords and apply thick coatings of fresh blood on them. Then they would place the swords into the ground pointing upwards. The wolves would get the smell of the fresh blood and get attracted to the swords. They would then start licking the swords. On enjoying the taste of the fresh blood, they would continue licking it. As the layer of blood became thin, the sharpness of the sword would increase. Gradually, the wolves tongues would get cut and start bleeding but the wolves would be so engrossed in licking the fresh blood that they would not be able to make out that they are swallowing their own blood. Eventually, they would grow weak due to loss of blood and pass out. After which the hunters would come and kill them easily.

This story was compared with what we do in our lives. People who fall into the vices like drinking, smoking, drugs, etc are compared to the wolves. In the beginning, they enjoy their addictions with the most pleasure. But in the end it leads to nothing but their death.

Late stay = Hard work?

I've always been asking this question to friends about late stay and hard work. Because I've always been confused about my stand on this. Considering today's work culture especially in the IT industry, late stay has become a norm. People don't mind spending 10-16 hours in office. So does this equate to productive hours?

Maybe in other industries like those involving manual labor, working more may equate to working hard because more output will be obtained. But the IT industry works differently (by IT I mainly refer to software producing companies). Here people work their best in bursts because the main tool used is the mind and concentrating cannot be done for long stretches of time. No person can be productive continuously for 10 hours. It is in taking breaks and then concentrating for some time which produces the maximum productivity. So we have different views regarding late staying. One is that because we work in bursts, late stay is good as we can relax and work periodically instead of working under stress. This sounds good but then what happens is people tend to over stress themselves. That is why many young people are suffering from illnesses like blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, which sometime back were heard of only in old people.

Looks like it is the managers who promote late staying. They themselves stay late and expect other's to do so too. Now working late during deadlines is acceptable but when it turns into a routine something is wrong somewhere. It seems that the crazy scheduling of work is where the problems start. Companies are into competition and the best place where they can compete is reduction in the delivery time. But this decision is paid heavily by the employees in terms of mismanagement of time.

So what is the solution? Frankly, I'm still searching for answers by analyzing what people have to say about this. But the solutions are definitely there. Many countries like Germany, UK, etc have strict norms laid out when it comes to work. Do you work with utmost efficiency and go and live your life. Such norms should be enforced by the organizations like NASSCOM who have a say in the IT industry. Only then can we expect some regulation in this matter.

This song is dedicated to guys/girls like me who sometimes feel low because we are not someone else.

Joey Mcintyre - Stay The Same

Don't you ever wish
You were someone else
You were meant to be
The way you are exactly
Don't you ever say
You don't like the way you are
When you learn to love yourself
You're better off by far
And I hope you always stay the same
Cause there's nothing about you I would change

I think that you could be
Whatever you wanted to be
If you could realize
All the dreams you have inside
Don't be afraid
If you've got something to say
Just open up your heart and let it show you the way

Don't you ever wish
You were someone else
You were meant to be
The way you are exactly
Don't you ever say
You don't like the way you are
When you learn to love yourself
You're better off by far
And I hope you always stay the same
Cause there's nothing about you I would change

Believe in yourself
Reach down inside
The love you find will set you free
Believe in yourself
You will come alive
Have faith in what you do
You'll make it through
Whoa...Hey!

Don't you ever wish you were someone else
You were meant to be
The way you are exactly
Don't you ever say
You don't like the way you are
When you learn to love yourself
You're better off by far
And I hope you always stay the same
Cause there's nothing about you I would change

Ooooooh yeah
You were meant to be
Oh whoa..
Whooo Love yourself..

And I hope you always stay the same
Cause there's nothing about you I would change
No there's nothing about you I would change

Where are we headed in life?

When you determined what you want, you have made the most important decision of your life. You have to know what you want in order to attain it. ~ Douglas Lurtan ~

If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. ~ Laurence J. Peter ~

Well, life is like that. A life without goals is somewhat wasting it. Just getting swayed like a leaf in the wind, having no sense of direction just causes us to fail to live the life that God has given to us. So the first thing we should have is a goal in life. Actually we should have many goals in life.

We should have at least a long term goal as to what we want to achieve say 5 to 1o years from now. We should put ourselves in place of that person that we want to become after those years. Seeing how it feels to be that person will help us to be motivated towards our goals.
For me, in about 5 to 10 years, I see myself as a successful person both at family and at work. I want to have a lovely family, take care of my parents and increase my position at work.

Also we should have short term goals. Short term goals are like the energy pills for our motivation. When we achieve success in our short term goals we feel good and motivated for moving forward towards our long term ones. Short term goals are basically milestones in achieving your long term goals.
For me my short term goals include improving myself as a human being, learn to respect and love others, keep reading to improve myself and my work, trying something different, etc.

But just setting goals will not help us achieve them. Action is what will achieve those goals for us. If our goals are from our heart, we will always be motivated towards achieving them. We should use our short term milestones to achieve our optimal best.

Sure when we try to achieve our goals, we will face obstacles. That does not mean that we should give up. Life just tells us that we should take a different path than the current one but our final destination should still be the same. Never, ever, give up on our goals and we will find true happiness.

So what are your goals? What are your milestones to achieving your happiness?

Exercise

Exercise is one of those things which everyone knows will be beneficial to their health but no one is willing to put in the effort to live a healthy life. Advantages of exercising are good immune system, better body, relief from stress, longer life, etc.

I'm not an expert at exercising but I do know a few points about it gained from experience of learning some forms of exercise. Exercise means different things to different people and it should be based on the end result that people want to achieve. If you want to stay fit, regular walking, jogging, swimming, should be enough. If you want to tone muscles, weight reduction and weight training exercises are necessary. To bulk up, heavy eating and heavy weight training is required.

There are n number of exercise techniques available and it just confuses the hell out of people (it did confuse me). But I prefer to keep exercise into two basic forms keeping in mind my goal is muscle toning. Before I mention them, before any exercise an important thing is warm up to avoid any damage to the muscles or soreness. Warm up means light stretching movement of the muscles and the body before beginning heavy exercises.

1) Cardiovascular exercises:
Cardiovascular exercises are those when you perform will increase your heart rate. So exercises like brisk walking, jogging, swimming, aerobics fall into this category of exercises. They are simple exercises which anyone can do and are the fastest way to lose weight (brisk walking for around 45 minutes daily can work wonders to lose weight and it also refreshes the mind). Since they improve the heart rate, they are good for increasing endurance. Everyone can and should be doing these. Highly recommended by doctors.
I have been able to incorporate cardio by walking from the station to my house which gives me a 30 minute brisk walk.

2) Weight training:
Weight training involves strengthening the muscles of your body by providing resistance to them. This involves lifting heavy weights like dumb bells, bar bells, and all the other fancy gym equipment you can think of. By straining your muscles, you break them and when they repair they become much stronger. That is the basics of weight training.
I don't have fancy equipment nor the time to go to a gym, so for me weight training involves push ups, crunches and bicep curls.

Any form of exercise is better than nothing. While I have mentioned these exercises, people who don't have time (which I can't see why) should atleast try simple stuff like taking the stairs instead of lifts, walking short distances instead of taking bikes and cars or participating in sporting activities.

This is what I can share about exercising. I too am a learner and hope to improve as I go. I did not mention another aspect of fitness which is equally important as exercising and that is the diet we follow. Maybe in another post.

Best way to communicate

A friend of mine mentioned that she feels the best way to communicate with friends is through a phone call. And that internet communication, mainly text chat was way too manipulative as per her experience (I guess some friend might have pissed her off on the internet by being manipulative. Well, then he/she shouldn't be a friend in the first place) . As usual, I dislike generalization of habits to people because each and every person is different and we cannot expect everyone to be the same.

I feel every mode of communication, be it direct face to face, on the telephone or through the internet has its own purpose. Of course, still the best form of communication is a straight face to face and heart to heart talk. But then what happens when distance separates the people? Telephone and the internet serve this purpose of long distance communication. Telephone has the advantage that we can still hear the tonality of the voice of a person which internet chat fails to do (of course, yahoo, gtalk and skype can be used to talk on the internet as well). When telephone calls become costly, that is inter continent calls, then the internet is the best medium of communication.

Frankly, it was orkut that helped me gain contact with many of my friends whom I would not have heard from (bless the person who introduced me to it). And yes to improve our relationships, we need to communicate as much as possible either directly or through the phone. But the important thing is we need to keep in touch even if it is passively through the internet (once again, yahoo, gtalk and skype are closing the gap between calls and chat).

And one more lesson: If a person is manipulative, he/she will be the same whether talking directly, through the phone or the internet. So instead of blaming the internet, maybe we should spend time building good friendships using whatever way is possible.