1 - Number of month its been since we moved in here
2 - The number of times my phone rang today
3 - Hours more till I have someone around to talk with
4 - The number of times I logged in and out of my facebook account
5 - The number of topics I decided to blog, before I just settled in this one!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Steve Jobs
Steven P. Jobs, the Apple Inc. chairman and co-founder who pioneered the personal-computer industry died today at the age of 56. Dedicated to this amazing human being, creative genius and the greatest inventor who put the world at our fingertips ! RIP
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Friday, September 30, 2011
So many !
..there are so many out there who would tell you that you can't. What you've got is to turn around and say "watch me !"
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A family rented in my balcony !
As an usual chores, one evening I filled a bucket with rinsed cloths from the washing machine and opened the balcony door from the bedroom to put the cloths to dry. The door creaked badly and I could see two pigeon chipping away from the balcony. They didnt fly long, just clung to a electric power line just opposite to my balcony and watched me let my cloths dry ! I did take a while to put the cloths and clipped them, by then my husband Sekar called me up and I was hanging on phone for sometime in the balcony. You know its wild when you see someone looking at you for a longtime. It was exactly the same how i felt when the two pigeons stared at me from the power lines. Once I dropped the call, I closed the balcony door and went on to prepare dinner.
The following morning I got up late as usual and was messing in the kitchen to prepare breakfast and pack lunch. And later when I had to collect the cloths that I had put to dry the previous evening I spotted the pigeons flying away again through a small opening at the bottom in the balcony. Ours was not an open balcony, it was grilled and had small openings at equal intervals in the bottom like a design. Since I had put the cloths, it had blocked their passage into the balcony through that opening. So overnight what these guys have done is that, they have managed to turn around a cloth over the cord and make a way for them into and out of the balcony temporarily ! Could they be so mischievous... may be they could. Soon myself and Sekar were a kinda excited to see these little guys hanging around the balcony and especially when they started building a small nest with twigs and dry leaves over an empty basket that I had left on a corner
Day by day they filled the basket arranging the twigs on a specific pattern. It was so nice to see that one pigeon would fly around and bring the twigs and dry leaves while the other would stay near the nest and arrange them meticulously in a weaving pattern. It was almost near completion when one morning I picked some small sticks and placed it in the basket-turned-nest thinking as a contribution from my hand in building their nest :P . Later that evening we realized to our surprise that, the notorious ones had removed the same sticks that I placed, out of the nest ! It was so cute, that they wanted a nest to be built of their own and they didn't want anyone's help on that... This is natures beauty ! But it just puzzled me how did they pick the exact ones I placed and pulled them out of the nest .
Once the nest was ready, the little lady nested her egg and the little man was always around to take care of the egg. Two days later another egg was nested and the parents took turn keeping the eggs warm. Seems the male pigeon usually stay on the nest during the day and the female stay on the nest at night. Mother nature is always to be admired ! Sekar and me would check every day on those eggs. It took 18 days for the first one to hatch and a couple of days for the later. Once the new borns were there, they made lots of different sounds and got too aggressive when we were nearing the nest, thinking we might hurt the little ones. We just managed to take few snaps of their small family. After some three weeks we found that the family had left our place :( may be to a soaring heights.
Today when I see pigeons , I would like to let them know this "Are you the guys who rented in our balcony ? Just wanted to tell you that we had a great time on your stay with us! "
The following morning I got up late as usual and was messing in the kitchen to prepare breakfast and pack lunch. And later when I had to collect the cloths that I had put to dry the previous evening I spotted the pigeons flying away again through a small opening at the bottom in the balcony. Ours was not an open balcony, it was grilled and had small openings at equal intervals in the bottom like a design. Since I had put the cloths, it had blocked their passage into the balcony through that opening. So overnight what these guys have done is that, they have managed to turn around a cloth over the cord and make a way for them into and out of the balcony temporarily ! Could they be so mischievous... may be they could. Soon myself and Sekar were a kinda excited to see these little guys hanging around the balcony and especially when they started building a small nest with twigs and dry leaves over an empty basket that I had left on a corner
Day by day they filled the basket arranging the twigs on a specific pattern. It was so nice to see that one pigeon would fly around and bring the twigs and dry leaves while the other would stay near the nest and arrange them meticulously in a weaving pattern. It was almost near completion when one morning I picked some small sticks and placed it in the basket-turned-nest thinking as a contribution from my hand in building their nest :P . Later that evening we realized to our surprise that, the notorious ones had removed the same sticks that I placed, out of the nest ! It was so cute, that they wanted a nest to be built of their own and they didn't want anyone's help on that... This is natures beauty ! But it just puzzled me how did they pick the exact ones I placed and pulled them out of the nest .
Once the nest was ready, the little lady nested her egg and the little man was always around to take care of the egg. Two days later another egg was nested and the parents took turn keeping the eggs warm. Seems the male pigeon usually stay on the nest during the day and the female stay on the nest at night. Mother nature is always to be admired ! Sekar and me would check every day on those eggs. It took 18 days for the first one to hatch and a couple of days for the later. Once the new borns were there, they made lots of different sounds and got too aggressive when we were nearing the nest, thinking we might hurt the little ones. We just managed to take few snaps of their small family. After some three weeks we found that the family had left our place :( may be to a soaring heights.
Today when I see pigeons , I would like to let them know this "Are you the guys who rented in our balcony ? Just wanted to tell you that we had a great time on your stay with us! "
Monday, August 8, 2011
M-U-T-U-A-L
This Sunday we took a long drive to visit my hubby's little cousin brother at his residential school. The usual naughty 5th grade lad who was pampered with care and love all these days at home turned meek the day he was left in that new place. It’s been almost a month and every week his mother visited him to make sure he doesn’t feels homesick. This week she couldn’t make it up, and we went instead.
We were waiting for him at the visitor’s room with some chocolates, rubik’s cube and a book which he wanted. It reminded me of the good old day when my parents and my little sister would come to visit me at my college hostel in Madurai. The moment I was informed by the convent warden sisters that I had visitors, I would run from my room to the visitors waiting hall and the second I see my parents there would be the happiest since they last visited ! All these thoughts criss-crossed me while we were waiting for the little guy and after a while there he comes.... walking so quiet and timid into the hall and he turned dreary when he got to know that his mother has not come to visit him this week though he didn’t question anything about her.
The young man didn’t complain of his stay in hostel and we were happy that he had made good friends and was getting used to his new hostel life. But he wanted one favour, and that was to get his hostel room changed. We were surprised to know that he had also managed to find a boy in 7th grade, who was willing to swap his room with him. The sincere reason they explained us was that, they wanted to stay with their friends to do combined studies. OMG! I was wondering what kind of combined studies a 5th grade kid would have with their friends ,b’cos combined studies for me would be more of chatting, watching movies, eating & all kinda fun among friends with very little studies. But here the actual reason was that he had some kinda misunderstandings with the other inmates in the present room and he badly wanted to stay with his friends in the room the 7th grader is in and have fun. Proactively he had also enquired about the room changing process. A letter was to be submitted to his warden with the principal’s approval on room change along with the parents/guardians presence. The 5th grader went back to the hostel to bring his 7th grader friend offering him his room meanwhile we had our lunch in the food court
After a while the kids returned with a ruled paper and my hubby started to draft the letter for the kids. The 7th grader interrupted him...the little one had a sample letter and just he just wanted an exact copy of it. And you know what...It was sheer fun reading the sample letter with these lines
From
XXX 5th std,
YYY 7th std
To
The Principal
Subject : Request for room change with own will
Respected Sir,
I want to change my room from .305 block 3 to No.207 block with all my will.YYY also wanted to change room from 207 to 305 with all his will to study with his friends. I also want to change for studies purpose only
Please understand and allow us to change room with all will.
Thanking You,
Yours Obediently
XXX 5th std,
YYY 7th std
We didn’t know that changing a room in hostel also needed such BIG mutual agreements with their own WILL. Anyways the kids needed not a single word change in this sample letter ! What else we could do... as usual ctrl-c and ctrl-v. Having signed the letter, we went to the principal’s office to get his approval on the Mutual agreement with all his will! The letter was in the hands of the respected Principal ... He read through the lines... and the only question he had for the kids ... "Mutual only know...Then no problem for me ! " .. The kids nodded obediently
We were waiting for him at the visitor’s room with some chocolates, rubik’s cube and a book which he wanted. It reminded me of the good old day when my parents and my little sister would come to visit me at my college hostel in Madurai. The moment I was informed by the convent warden sisters that I had visitors, I would run from my room to the visitors waiting hall and the second I see my parents there would be the happiest since they last visited ! All these thoughts criss-crossed me while we were waiting for the little guy and after a while there he comes.... walking so quiet and timid into the hall and he turned dreary when he got to know that his mother has not come to visit him this week though he didn’t question anything about her.
The young man didn’t complain of his stay in hostel and we were happy that he had made good friends and was getting used to his new hostel life. But he wanted one favour, and that was to get his hostel room changed. We were surprised to know that he had also managed to find a boy in 7th grade, who was willing to swap his room with him. The sincere reason they explained us was that, they wanted to stay with their friends to do combined studies. OMG! I was wondering what kind of combined studies a 5th grade kid would have with their friends ,b’cos combined studies for me would be more of chatting, watching movies, eating & all kinda fun among friends with very little studies. But here the actual reason was that he had some kinda misunderstandings with the other inmates in the present room and he badly wanted to stay with his friends in the room the 7th grader is in and have fun. Proactively he had also enquired about the room changing process. A letter was to be submitted to his warden with the principal’s approval on room change along with the parents/guardians presence. The 5th grader went back to the hostel to bring his 7th grader friend offering him his room meanwhile we had our lunch in the food court
After a while the kids returned with a ruled paper and my hubby started to draft the letter for the kids. The 7th grader interrupted him...the little one had a sample letter and just he just wanted an exact copy of it. And you know what...It was sheer fun reading the sample letter with these lines
From
XXX 5th std,
YYY 7th std
To
The Principal
Subject : Request for room change with own will
Respected Sir,
I want to change my room from .305 block 3 to No.207 block with all my will.YYY also wanted to change room from 207 to 305 with all his will to study with his friends. I also want to change for studies purpose only
Please understand and allow us to change room with all will.
Thanking You,
Yours Obediently
XXX 5th std,
YYY 7th std
We didn’t know that changing a room in hostel also needed such BIG mutual agreements with their own WILL. Anyways the kids needed not a single word change in this sample letter ! What else we could do... as usual ctrl-c and ctrl-v. Having signed the letter, we went to the principal’s office to get his approval on the Mutual agreement with all his will! The letter was in the hands of the respected Principal ... He read through the lines... and the only question he had for the kids ... "Mutual only know...Then no problem for me ! " .. The kids nodded obediently
Monday, March 14, 2011
My Little Angel and the others...
This little gal, kept me engaged the whole day and I loved doing this :)
I tried bringing colors to my little one, hope she liked it !
