Wait!!!
Is this machine really showing my weight or is it one more conked machine that is flattering to deceive? First time in ages, I get to step on a Weighing Scale and it doesn't cross the 75 kgs mark (167 lbs). I've had phases when I'd gone well past 200 lbs. So this is like a stunning turnaround. All thanks to the great Sauna called Hong Kong that I've been cursing for the past month or so.
To lose 8 kgs in a month, without doing anything major to the diet or exercise is really stunning. I know I've visited the Running Track a handful of times and the Gym even fewer times, but I was doing that even when I was in Bangalore. This reminded me of my last few days in Bangalore when I was hogging like crazy and trying to gain weight telling everyone who would listen that it did not matter since I was going on a year long diet program. I definitely didn't know this would turn out to be such an accurate prediction so soon.
Anyway let me not celebrate too soon. GD had predicted that it was natural to lose weight the first few months and then gain them back over the next few months as the body gets adjusted to the Climate. Maybe the winter will push me get back to my original shape. I hope not and I'll surely try my best to ensure this does not happen. In fact now that Nature is willing me on, I should probably put in some effort to actually help out.
For inspiration, I have the Super Fit Hi-Energy "Half-Naked" Jon right across the hall-way. What more can I ask for? If I exercised half as regularly as him, I'd probably be super-fit by the time winter's here. Like I was telling someone the other day, coming to HK has a lot of benefits - here's one more. ;-)
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Sunday, September 23, 2007
Saturday, September 01, 2007
ELP/RP and the second week in HK
ELP was tagged as the best experience that we will go through over the 16 months at HKUST. Did it live up to it? Not exactly. But it was fun and painful at the same time.
Got a good taste of how hectic the next few months would be with about 10 hours of classes followed by another 6-7 hours of after-class activity preparing case presentations and doing field-studies. But all of this was sure fun - the first case was a big time screw-up. But the good thing was that we as a team got better as the days moved on and we finally ended up winning the last field-study cum presentation.
The last two days of ELP involved a lot of Team-Building activities. The best part of the five days I think was getting to know your own personality types and which of the "Tiger" - Dominant, "Owl" - Conformance personified, "Koala Bear" - Pace/Patience, "Peacock" - Extrovert or "Chameleon" - Mix of above four we represented under a normal circumstances.
I am supposedly a Koala inside characterized by Patience, Easygoing, Steady, Consistent, Helpful, Evenly Paced, Non-Judgmental, Self-Effacing, Expects little from others and Thoughtful of others and that's what majority of my team-mates felt I was with the experience over the first three days of the RP. But when it gets to Priority situations, I am a more of a Tiger and Koala crossed together. :-)
I got to stay in the Regal Airport Hotel (at least on paper) because actually got to spend less than 24 hours in total over the 4 days in the Room. Had my first look at how bad some food options can get since the first day, the Hotel and HKUST staff had forgotten that there were 3 jains and few more vegetarians in our batch. After some of us made a big fuss over the food, the next few days got better and a couple of times, the non-veggies among us were jealous of the number of dishes we vegetarians were getting. We added salt to that by acting like it was the tastiest food we ever had although it tasted yucky as ever.
Some other highlights of the last week -
=> Had coffee in a coffee shop as an experiment to observe the behavior of the Cafe staff.
=> Did some fun stuff at the Experiential Learning Program
=> Got my first assignment in accounting - pretty simple one. But working individually and then as a small group and then in class is the method of learning.
=> Got introduced to the HKUST Cricket Team captain by Rajiv. So will try and go for practice next weekend. Missed today's practice because of a late weekend.
=> Went to the HKUST gym for the first time - not the most hi-tech one. But when compared to the INFY gym, lots of equipment that is free and it is available almost round the clock so can work out at any time of day.
=> Walked around HKUST campus - only negative there was not having a camera on hand. Lost my way a few times in the innumerable lifts several times. :-)
=> Ordered by first Thinkpad - expected to ship around 25th September. Managing with my ages-old Compaq Presario till then
=> Got my first HK SIM (50HKD per month for 1600 mins Monthly plan) - Number to call is +852.6622.3664. Call me whenever.
=> Made a lot of new friends while working. Since I'm not the best at remembering names, I'm going to take a lot of time to actually know everyone's names. But take it 10 at a time and I should be able to do it soon.
=> Met a few alumni during the alumni meet and started the visiting card collection spree.
=> Got the IT Exemption approved after the initial rejection by convincing Chris who in turn spoke to Prof. Jeevan and got it approved
=> Working on getting the Stats exemption. The Prof wants to interview me. Damn what do I remember about stats. Time to revise whatever I know since the Interview is sometime soon. :-(
More updates to come in the coming weeks!!!
Got a good taste of how hectic the next few months would be with about 10 hours of classes followed by another 6-7 hours of after-class activity preparing case presentations and doing field-studies. But all of this was sure fun - the first case was a big time screw-up. But the good thing was that we as a team got better as the days moved on and we finally ended up winning the last field-study cum presentation.
The last two days of ELP involved a lot of Team-Building activities. The best part of the five days I think was getting to know your own personality types and which of the "Tiger" - Dominant, "Owl" - Conformance personified, "Koala Bear" - Pace/Patience, "Peacock" - Extrovert or "Chameleon" - Mix of above four we represented under a normal circumstances.
I am supposedly a Koala inside characterized by Patience, Easygoing, Steady, Consistent, Helpful, Evenly Paced, Non-Judgmental, Self-Effacing, Expects little from others and Thoughtful of others and that's what majority of my team-mates felt I was with the experience over the first three days of the RP. But when it gets to Priority situations, I am a more of a Tiger and Koala crossed together. :-)
I got to stay in the Regal Airport Hotel (at least on paper) because actually got to spend less than 24 hours in total over the 4 days in the Room. Had my first look at how bad some food options can get since the first day, the Hotel and HKUST staff had forgotten that there were 3 jains and few more vegetarians in our batch. After some of us made a big fuss over the food, the next few days got better and a couple of times, the non-veggies among us were jealous of the number of dishes we vegetarians were getting. We added salt to that by acting like it was the tastiest food we ever had although it tasted yucky as ever.
Some other highlights of the last week -
=> Had coffee in a coffee shop as an experiment to observe the behavior of the Cafe staff.
=> Did some fun stuff at the Experiential Learning Program
=> Got my first assignment in accounting - pretty simple one. But working individually and then as a small group and then in class is the method of learning.
=> Got introduced to the HKUST Cricket Team captain by Rajiv. So will try and go for practice next weekend. Missed today's practice because of a late weekend.
=> Went to the HKUST gym for the first time - not the most hi-tech one. But when compared to the INFY gym, lots of equipment that is free and it is available almost round the clock so can work out at any time of day.
=> Walked around HKUST campus - only negative there was not having a camera on hand. Lost my way a few times in the innumerable lifts several times. :-)
=> Ordered by first Thinkpad - expected to ship around 25th September. Managing with my ages-old Compaq Presario till then
=> Got my first HK SIM (50HKD per month for 1600 mins Monthly plan) - Number to call is +852.6622.3664. Call me whenever.
=> Made a lot of new friends while working. Since I'm not the best at remembering names, I'm going to take a lot of time to actually know everyone's names. But take it 10 at a time and I should be able to do it soon.
=> Met a few alumni during the alumni meet and started the visiting card collection spree.
=> Got the IT Exemption approved after the initial rejection by convincing Chris who in turn spoke to Prof. Jeevan and got it approved
=> Working on getting the Stats exemption. The Prof wants to interview me. Damn what do I remember about stats. Time to revise whatever I know since the Interview is sometime soon. :-(
More updates to come in the coming weeks!!!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Bangalore to KL to HK
Letter to my folks back home ... gives a gist of my journey to HK !!!
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Hello Everyone,
Hegiddhira ellaru!!! Ni Hao? That's how are you in Mandarin. :-) That's as much Chinese (Mandarin) I knew. Deepak has left behind a Learn Chinese through English book - so will probably put in some effort to pick up more over the next few months.
Naanu phonealli helida haage ninne madhyana reachade. Trip was pretty uneventful. Had a Indian Aunty next to me .. going to KL for some conference. Full conference'ge practice nanna jothege madidlu. She went on and on and on ... for ever about her life, her kid, her husband, her challenges at work, what she was going to talk about in the conference and so on and so forth. In summary, she didn't let me sleep at all and finally the last one hour when she had gone to sleep, sleep had run away from me for good. So picked up some book I'd carried along and started reading ... the tons of material that I had got from UST and not opened yet. Ashtottige KL Airport banthu.
Had a minor issue there. Reached KL at 7:00 am (Local Time) and took a walk around the Airport and at one point I saw some small line forming up. Didn't bother seeing what that was about and went on window shopping in the duty free stores. ..... Then around an hour before my flight, I thought I'd better look at which gate my flight is on and found out that small queue and grown into one huge one stretching to almost a
few 100 people was the one for giving further boarding passes. Damn!!! I was stuck in KL for the entire day since the next flight was in the evening. That meant reaching the University at night, no place to sleep (with offices closed, etc). I waited for some time to see if this line moved fast enough. About half an hour before my flight,
thought I'd try something ... went to the counter and asked for the supervisor. Approached him, told him that if I took the evening flight to HK, they'd have to put me up in a hotel since my University office is closed, or give me a Hotel in KL and put me on the next day's flight. He thought it was cheaper to bend the rules a bit and gave me a boarding pass right there. :-) Took my luggage cart and rushed to
the boarding gate and just about made it.
KL to HK was pretty uneventful. One serious looking American Business Executive who I didn't bother striking up a conversation with ... left him to himself and watched some movie (about Basket ball coach and his girl team .. don't know the movie name and don't care to know too).
Reached HK around 1:00 pm (HK Time) .. 10:30 IST. Met a friend Pradeep from College in Immigration area ... no problems there. My friend has his own company in India and he was here for some deployment ... might try and catch up with him over the weekend. Followed the directions I had from Deepak / Prathap to the T. Got on a bus to Po Lam (E22A) that is the closest a bus from the Airport goes to the University I'd heard. This journey got a little irritating at one point because he never followed arrows which pointed towards Po Lam (or in other words he took the longest possible route to Po Lam) and I was about to go to the driver and ask him if
we were going to reach today or tomorrow when he drove into a Bus Terminal. Phew!!! I breathed a sigh of relief. As I was getting off, my cabin bag gave away - couple of screws came off. Might just try and get another Cabin Bag on one of my shopping tours of HK - looks like there are malls everywhere out here and some of these Meat markets really really stink.
Just as I got off the bus and was looking for a Taxi ... I saw a couple of Indians - one of them I recognized as Prathap - an Indian in my batch waiting for another bus to the University. Since I was in no mood for another drive around the city, I suggested we go for a Taxi ... found one and hopped in. Reached Campus in about 10 mins, finished the formalities at the SKCC Hall Office and went in to look for my room.
The room's pretty small - probably 9ft x 6ft ... but good enough with a lot of storage space - one huge cupboard, a big writing desk with a keyboard stand and the works. One negative I learnt a little later is that my Room was not sea-facing, I was wondering if I should ask for another room when I learnt that the sea-facing rooms get pretty cold during winters and when there are thunderstorms. So thought better of it. There's a common Room in every floor (with Microwave and Fridge and a few chairs) which is sea-facing into which I'll probably head whenever I want a view.
About the campus - this whole area is on a hill next to the sea (actually a bay - called the Clear Water Bay - part of the address of the campus). Supposed to have pretty good Sports facilities ... still haven't had time to check them out .. might try and find someone tomorrow to join me in checking out the place. Most of the key offices are on or around what is called the Ground Floor (Don't think that
it's a sea-level) since the sea is much much below that area. Anyway, going to the Main Classrooms and all the offices means a few short walks interspersed with a few Lift rides from one level to another. Still haven't figured it out ... will probably write down the key walks somewhere and take it from there till I get familiar with this system.
I took a quick shower which freshened me up and I was wondering as to how I could get in touch with GD - maybe find a phone somewhere when I saw him looking around in the area below my Room window. Called him up to my room and after catching up with him for a bit on how things have been, hooked up with the other Indians in the batch. ... went and grabbed a Tea (Hong Kong Style Milk Tea with Natural Milk) which was pretty
close to Indian Tea. Might get hooked onto it soon to stay awake late at night, etc. But that's still some time away. Dinner was at one of the stalls where we had a Veggie Dish that two of us shared and still had a lot of curry left. So sharing when eating out or ordering in groups seems to be the way to go ... Student Life alva!!! It still hasn't fully sunk in .. but getting into student mode slowly but surely. :-)
This morning, got my Hong Kong ID done which is like the most important ID card in Hong Kong. Spent all morning jumping from one counter to the next with long bouts of waiting in between and finally got it done around noon. Came back to Campus ... got my Octopus card on the way (Used in all Public Transport like a Pre-Paid Use anywhere
card). I've got most of the cooking stuff (Utensils, Elec Cooker, etc) from GD who's going for an exchange till Jan. So will have some time to get ready with stuff by then. Might try and get most of the stuff (whatever possible within the weight limit in my India Trip).
Finished with the student registration and some work in the MBA office which would allow me to start using the Internet in the room. Bringing my comp was a good idea for sure. Still need to decide on the Laptop though. Tis stupid laptop has suddenly got a problem wit te "H" (No that wasn't intentional :-)) character now apart from the heating. Need to really strike hard to get it to work and a lot of backspaces when typing this mail.
After a marathon cooking effort and some food ordered from one of the restaurants, we had lunch. Group cooking takes a hell of a long time ... So self-cooking will need to start soon or will stick to eating out at the Campus cafetaria.
Got my Bank Card done in the afternoon, short nap followed by HKSM Tea in the evening, went out for Dinner to Town where I met a friend of GD's who works for an Infy client here. ...
Finally got time to complete this mail in the evening and send it to you. Had started writing the mail in the afternoon when I got interrupted by something. Anyway, don't think I can do such lengthy mails once classes start ... so making up while I can. :-)
Stupid me ... that I haven't got my camera. But will try and get some
photos taken by others and send it across. Sudhir - Try and get the
Nikon camera fixed plz!!
Take care and miss you all.
Lots of luv,
Randhir
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Hello Everyone,
Hegiddhira ellaru!!! Ni Hao? That's how are you in Mandarin. :-) That's as much Chinese (Mandarin) I knew. Deepak has left behind a Learn Chinese through English book - so will probably put in some effort to pick up more over the next few months.
Naanu phonealli helida haage ninne madhyana reachade. Trip was pretty uneventful. Had a Indian Aunty next to me .. going to KL for some conference. Full conference'ge practice nanna jothege madidlu. She went on and on and on ... for ever about her life, her kid, her husband, her challenges at work, what she was going to talk about in the conference and so on and so forth. In summary, she didn't let me sleep at all and finally the last one hour when she had gone to sleep, sleep had run away from me for good. So picked up some book I'd carried along and started reading ... the tons of material that I had got from UST and not opened yet. Ashtottige KL Airport banthu.
Had a minor issue there. Reached KL at 7:00 am (Local Time) and took a walk around the Airport and at one point I saw some small line forming up. Didn't bother seeing what that was about and went on window shopping in the duty free stores. ..... Then around an hour before my flight, I thought I'd better look at which gate my flight is on and found out that small queue and grown into one huge one stretching to almost a
few 100 people was the one for giving further boarding passes. Damn!!! I was stuck in KL for the entire day since the next flight was in the evening. That meant reaching the University at night, no place to sleep (with offices closed, etc). I waited for some time to see if this line moved fast enough. About half an hour before my flight,
thought I'd try something ... went to the counter and asked for the supervisor. Approached him, told him that if I took the evening flight to HK, they'd have to put me up in a hotel since my University office is closed, or give me a Hotel in KL and put me on the next day's flight. He thought it was cheaper to bend the rules a bit and gave me a boarding pass right there. :-) Took my luggage cart and rushed to
the boarding gate and just about made it.
KL to HK was pretty uneventful. One serious looking American Business Executive who I didn't bother striking up a conversation with ... left him to himself and watched some movie (about Basket ball coach and his girl team .. don't know the movie name and don't care to know too).
Reached HK around 1:00 pm (HK Time) .. 10:30 IST. Met a friend Pradeep from College in Immigration area ... no problems there. My friend has his own company in India and he was here for some deployment ... might try and catch up with him over the weekend. Followed the directions I had from Deepak / Prathap to the T. Got on a bus to Po Lam (E22A) that is the closest a bus from the Airport goes to the University I'd heard. This journey got a little irritating at one point because he never followed arrows which pointed towards Po Lam (or in other words he took the longest possible route to Po Lam) and I was about to go to the driver and ask him if
we were going to reach today or tomorrow when he drove into a Bus Terminal. Phew!!! I breathed a sigh of relief. As I was getting off, my cabin bag gave away - couple of screws came off. Might just try and get another Cabin Bag on one of my shopping tours of HK - looks like there are malls everywhere out here and some of these Meat markets really really stink.
Just as I got off the bus and was looking for a Taxi ... I saw a couple of Indians - one of them I recognized as Prathap - an Indian in my batch waiting for another bus to the University. Since I was in no mood for another drive around the city, I suggested we go for a Taxi ... found one and hopped in. Reached Campus in about 10 mins, finished the formalities at the SKCC Hall Office and went in to look for my room.
The room's pretty small - probably 9ft x 6ft ... but good enough with a lot of storage space - one huge cupboard, a big writing desk with a keyboard stand and the works. One negative I learnt a little later is that my Room was not sea-facing, I was wondering if I should ask for another room when I learnt that the sea-facing rooms get pretty cold during winters and when there are thunderstorms. So thought better of it. There's a common Room in every floor (with Microwave and Fridge and a few chairs) which is sea-facing into which I'll probably head whenever I want a view.
About the campus - this whole area is on a hill next to the sea (actually a bay - called the Clear Water Bay - part of the address of the campus). Supposed to have pretty good Sports facilities ... still haven't had time to check them out .. might try and find someone tomorrow to join me in checking out the place. Most of the key offices are on or around what is called the Ground Floor (Don't think that
it's a sea-level) since the sea is much much below that area. Anyway, going to the Main Classrooms and all the offices means a few short walks interspersed with a few Lift rides from one level to another. Still haven't figured it out ... will probably write down the key walks somewhere and take it from there till I get familiar with this system.
I took a quick shower which freshened me up and I was wondering as to how I could get in touch with GD - maybe find a phone somewhere when I saw him looking around in the area below my Room window. Called him up to my room and after catching up with him for a bit on how things have been, hooked up with the other Indians in the batch. ... went and grabbed a Tea (Hong Kong Style Milk Tea with Natural Milk) which was pretty
close to Indian Tea. Might get hooked onto it soon to stay awake late at night, etc. But that's still some time away. Dinner was at one of the stalls where we had a Veggie Dish that two of us shared and still had a lot of curry left. So sharing when eating out or ordering in groups seems to be the way to go ... Student Life alva!!! It still hasn't fully sunk in .. but getting into student mode slowly but surely. :-)
This morning, got my Hong Kong ID done which is like the most important ID card in Hong Kong. Spent all morning jumping from one counter to the next with long bouts of waiting in between and finally got it done around noon. Came back to Campus ... got my Octopus card on the way (Used in all Public Transport like a Pre-Paid Use anywhere
card). I've got most of the cooking stuff (Utensils, Elec Cooker, etc) from GD who's going for an exchange till Jan. So will have some time to get ready with stuff by then. Might try and get most of the stuff (whatever possible within the weight limit in my India Trip).
Finished with the student registration and some work in the MBA office which would allow me to start using the Internet in the room. Bringing my comp was a good idea for sure. Still need to decide on the Laptop though. Tis stupid laptop has suddenly got a problem wit te "H" (No that wasn't intentional :-)) character now apart from the heating. Need to really strike hard to get it to work and a lot of backspaces when typing this mail.
After a marathon cooking effort and some food ordered from one of the restaurants, we had lunch. Group cooking takes a hell of a long time ... So self-cooking will need to start soon or will stick to eating out at the Campus cafetaria.
Got my Bank Card done in the afternoon, short nap followed by HKSM Tea in the evening, went out for Dinner to Town where I met a friend of GD's who works for an Infy client here. ...
Finally got time to complete this mail in the evening and send it to you. Had started writing the mail in the afternoon when I got interrupted by something. Anyway, don't think I can do such lengthy mails once classes start ... so making up while I can. :-)
Stupid me ... that I haven't got my camera. But will try and get some
photos taken by others and send it across. Sudhir - Try and get the
Nikon camera fixed plz!!
Take care and miss you all.
Lots of luv,
Randhir
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Shah Rukh ... is that fair?
This is one guy I always hated. Or maybe not ... I loved him after Baazigar and Darr and was one huge fan of him. Every movie that followed moved me away from being part of the SRK Fan club to now when I really hate him. Enjoyed the movie Swades ... but there were quite a few scenes that got spoilt by SRK's over-acting capabilities. The last nail in the coffin is the latest Fairness Cream Ad he features in It shows a lot about him as a person and his thinking abilities is all I can say.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Puzzles anyone?
This one's surely a little more tricky than the password guesses in movie sequences as the bomb counts down to 0. Tried this puzzle on the Net and thought you might like it as much as I did ... word of caution though. Lots of cheats available on the Net - Try not to google for any of these clues because the results will give away the answer. Let me know how far you make it.
One more of those fun things I got back to doing these past few days - Solving Crossword Puzzles and Playing Sudoku. :-) I really think that come what may, I should take a couple of weeks off every year going forward to do nothing at all. This is bliss.
One more of those fun things I got back to doing these past few days - Solving Crossword Puzzles and Playing Sudoku. :-) I really think that come what may, I should take a couple of weeks off every year going forward to do nothing at all. This is bliss.
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