Psychology: 53 Mind-Blowing Things You Should Know About Yourself

Psychology: 53 Mind-Blowing Things You Should Know About Yourself

Omaha Odyssey: First (Real) Encounter with Cops..

Kill Bill Vol 2:
It was Friday night in the summer of 2006, probably my best summer in US. During that time I was searching for jobs at a snails pace while going to work outs in the evening and partying every night. Incidentally it was noon by the time I got up only to find missed calls and voice messages from companies interested in my profile. I had to call them back to set up an appointment every time. Finally by the end of summer I got a job. The problem now was that I had to take 2 buses and then walk 15 minutes to reach office. Getting used to waking up at noon, I had a huge challenge now...being at office by 8AM. I somehow managed it for a few days and then one of my office buddyies used to pick me up. Soon I had to buy a car, my first one..Honda Accord 91.

I like it very much and had some great memories from it. And just a day after I bought my car I moved in with my bro Pandu. Pandu wanted to learn driving and I promised to take him out a couple of times, but with my busy schedule I never had enough time. So one Friday night while partying we had to get something from my office in the university building, so me and Pandu went in my car, half drunk. While coming back from the university, I asked Pandu to drive. But he was worried as he did not learn to drive fully and moreover he did not have a license. So, I insisted that he at least make a few rounds in the parking lot as it was empty (FYI, it was 1AM). So he took the steering wheel in his hands and rotated it a few times and then started the engine and repeated. After a few orbits , I guided him to drive out of the parking lot. He was just listening to my directions, so I managed to get him on the main road. I said "Bro, we are on the road already, we might as well drive back to our apartment".
He agreed. And we came to a cross road junction where we have to take a left. I told him to put on the indicator, he did.
After taking that turn, Pandu tried to turn the indicator off. He forgot that the indicator lights go off after the steering wheel turns back. He tried his best and turned off the head lights. A sudden-panic-struck-Pandu asked me what happened in a loud voice. I told him that he turned off the headlights and showed him the headlights control, but he was in no mood to listen. I had to bend over and turn the headlights on myself.
From there we took a right turn and entered our apartment road and as we neared the building, the most feared unexpected thing happened. I saw the flashing blue lights in the rear view mirror.
"Pandu, I think we have to stop, theres a cop car behind us"
Thats, it. Pandu's mind got hanged for a moment.
I told him to stop the car towards the right side of the road. He did.
I then pulled the gear to Parking and switched on the parking lights myself.
The cop's car came behind and stopped.
For a moment, I remembered that we were in the middle of partying( also implies ==> drinking) and was imagining for the worst.
The cop asked for a license, I immediately gave mine, saying that we were just going home. I also told him that I was teaching Pandu how to drive in the parking lot of our college. The cop said that he saw us in the lot and asked why the head lights were off?
I was surprised/shocked. I told him about the inadequate car skills of my buddy. Then he advised us to go home and asked where we lived. I pointed to the building beside the road.
Pandu was all shocked and did not know whats happening or what was going to happen. We realized that the cop was waiting on a small street near the main road from where he was watching all our moves in the parking lot and he started to follow us when the headlights went off.
After the cop left, Pandu immediately jumped out of the car and said he would never drive again!
The best part was the cop did not ask us to come out and do an alcohol test. Had he done that, Pandu would have lost his mind!

Madison Memories: Introduction....

Madison is one of the most beautiful cities I experienced in US. Though Omaha has its own charm, Madison is something different, guess you have to see it to believe it.
It was funny how I ended up in Madison...
After having a blast for almost 2 months in Omaha after graduation-no-job-yet experience, I finally moved to Milwaukee to stay with my brother and was applying for jobs. In the mean time I was exploring Milwaukee and the third season of HIMYM. Since I already knew that I was moving to Milwaukee I started applying for jobs even before I moved, from Omaha. When I got a call while busily packing for Colorado trip from one of the jobs I applied online, I thought that was the end of the conversation. I was asked if I had a few minutes to talk. I said that it wasnt a good time and asked if I could talk later and was told it'll be just 10 minutes. Their 10 minutes was my 45 minutes. Since I was already getting late I did not put my best foot forward in that call. But I got one more call before the face2face interview. I was applying for jobs on milwaukeejobs.com since I was planning to stay with my brother as my parents always wanted. I assumed that the site had jobs only from Milwaukee. When I was finally ready for the interview I realized the company was in Madison which was 90 minute drive from Milwaukee and thats when I knew the milwaukeejobs site had jobs from all over the state of WISCONSIN. Since it was my first interview I thought I might as well take a shot. So after 2 hours of interviewing I was in a dilemma about the job mostly thinking about what happens if I get it. After a week I got a verbal offer on phone. I took it after a brief negotiation and started preparing for my move. I made a few trips from Milwaukee to Madison in search of a place to live. So, when I was exploring Madison for the first time, it was a bag of big complex routes with one ways every where, especially in the downtown are. One time I came, made a few rounds and got confused and took a U-turn to Milwaukee. My phone's charge was over so I couldnt get anyone to help me out. I put up a classified ad on Madindians site and some one called me to share a studio apartment in downtown. After little over a month in downtown we moved closer to the company and thats where my Madison gang started!

Omaha Odyssey: First Encounter with Cops..

Actually there are two incidents that would serve the situation. Let me start with the first one...Kill Bill Vol I

It was the beginning of my first semester in the fall of 05. Soon after we settled in our new apartment back in Omaha, it dint take long for us to realize the drawbacks of not having music/movies/internet at home. Renting a laptop from university occasionally gave us some room to breathe, but still a standalone system that you could lay your hands on any time is a different thing. I saw a notice in our department building about some old IBM systems being sold for cheap. So I immediately talked to the sys admin guy who happened to be a good acquaintance already. So we managed to get a decent no-games-playable system for around $37. I brought the keyboard, mouse and monitor somehow but the CPU remained in the lab for a while as I did not get a chance to find some one for transportation as the CPU was heavy....its IBM afterall and our apartment was 10 minute walk from university.Finally I decided to carry it myself. When I was ready to pick it up, my roomie was ready to help me out but the only problem was it was around midnight. I couldnt let the CPU be in the lab any longer so we made a deal to carry it halfway till our room. My roomie lifted it till his shoulders and we started walking. As soon as we steeped outside of our building and took a few steps, I saw some flashing lights at a distance. With in no time, the Campus Security vehicle was in front of us and two cops were walking towards us. I explained them that I paid for the system and couldnt find any other time to take it home. He asked my friend to put the CPU down and looked at the university barcode and noted it down. Then he noted our names. I told him that I worked in the building as RA and had the access. Obviously he thought that we were taking away CPUs from the lab, obviously foolish...who would think of robbing a p3 with 256mb RAM, 30GB hard disk, god knows what the speed was...I mean the lab had much...much better systems. So after the discussion was over I kind of got pissed off for being blamed for such a cheap act of burglary. So I asked him if he could drop us at our apartment which I said would give him enough evidence for later...just in case!So, he dropped us both at our apartment and we had a good laugh about it later.
I finally got the transportation for getting my system home. However it took a while for us to install windows ("genuine") and start using it. By the way did I tell you that it just had a CD reader and no speakers....daaaarnnnn!!!

The second encounter happened almost a year later...with the actual cops(police), so I have to justify by taking a pause here.....Stay tuned.

Omaha Odyssey: Call 911---Fire Emergency!!

Back in the fall of 2006 when I was doing internship at Amerascope with full time courses at UNO, it was tough to catchup with school work. The fall semester has began, and the leaves started falling off trees every time there was a slight wind blow. Most of the times by the end of the day wind speeds increased making too many leaves fall at once. I was in my usual last-year-at-this-time nostalgia and was glad that I made it a year in US. All my courses were very critical subjects involving lot of work which was difficult with my almost full time internship. One fine weather day I was coming back from work in my car(91 Honda Accord). My car used to be in trouble almost regularly, as if in love with the mechanic and I was arranging their dates which were heavy on my pocket. As I turned into 69th street from Pacific I smelled something burning. I thought there might be some trash left by someone at the back, but still I was a bit tensed thinking about another date with the mechanic. When I got off and locked the door I saw steam from the bonnet. Let off some steam bonnet..I thought, but out of curiosity I opened up the hood. For a moment I lost my breathe when I saw fire near the engine. My mind went blank. Out of shock I was trying to blow off the fire. Though small the fire grew larger when I blew it. The wind outside was blowing faster with dry leaves flying around. In my worry I was looking around for water to put off the fire. A guy passing by told me to call 911. I shut the hood close and called 911 from my mobile. After giving instructions and address the lady asked me if it was in Omaha,??**!!%$# Yesss I shouted. The fire was near the engine when I saw it. I was far away from my car as it appeared that my car could explode any moment, the scenes from countless Hollywood movies that I saw influenced my thought so much. Then I ran inside to my apartment and searched for some big cloth to put off the fire and took one of my shirts and ran to the parking lot outside. By that time I could hear the loud siren of the fire truck. It was amazingly quick response. Two men heavily geared/dressed/armed with fire extinguishers got down and asked me where the fire was. I pointed them to my car's hood. They opened it up only to find some ash near the engine. He told that the alternator got burnt. And took my car's VIN number and left. At the next date with the mechanic I was told that the alternator's motor got heated up so much that the wires melted and caught fire. I replaced it with a used alternator for $160.
Every time we used to hear the fire trucks siren, we used to wonder whose what was burning. They used to run almost regularly. No wonder they made it so quickly to my apartment. But never imagined that it would be coming for me one day!! Life is unexpected, be ready to hear the siren.

God doesn't give us more than we can handle

Alright, here I am with a fully busy schedule. Normally, full time employees ( working 40 hrs/week) take one or at the max 2 courses per sem, as they think they cannot handle. Coz most of them have families too. We are always full time students with 3 or more courses in all the semesters. So, this semester I am playing both the roles of a full time employee and a full time student, considering my 20 hrs new internship and 20 hrs at University Library, which I am trying hard to fill up. And this all got worse when my car broke last week, fortunately its working fine now after replacing the radiator with a new one. This winter was the worst in a long time, when the snow covered San Antonio and California too. So in all this hustle, I caught cold and fever. Had to take off today to all my work and study. Ofcourse I had a midterm tonight, which will be looked at later on. Thanks to my professor. So, when I was getting too weak trying to ace all this, one of my friends inspired me with this quote. Sure, I believe in this that God can never give you more than you can handle. For me it only makes me feel more confident having successfully crossed all the lines, taking blows one on one, and still stand up.After all its my choice how much I want to take and rock. And on a final note my friend also said, What doesnt kill us, makes us stronger.

First Day, First Show...

As usual went to bed at around 2 AM, though planned at 12 AM, fortunately got up by 7AM. Guess what...the alarm did not ring too, coz as usual I set it at 7 PM. The freaking piece never shows AM-PM. Anyways, good thing, I got ready and walked out of the door as it was snowing litely. Then the unexpected thing happened, the battery went down. What a timing !! Searched for a recharging battery in couple of places, no way. I was getting late. Then like an angel Mr. Krishna, my almost room mate gave me a ride. On the way, we had to fill gas and took a wrong lane which killed like 15 minutes. What the heck, I was going to be late anyway. Atlast I was at Quantum Alliance building and reached Co-Act Solutions. My new internship started at 9:15 AM today. I couldnt get any one to pick me up so my supervisor dropped me back at 1:30 PM. No interview, no waiting for the good news, no procrastination in the whole hiring process....., yet going an hour late that too on first day and added to that asking the supervisor for a ride back home... all for just 4 hours of work...give me a break !! Well, thats how it goes with me, I dont like it, but it never ends.

My JOB--->Just Obey the Boss

Hey Hey Hey...todays flash news..."kid gets a job after a 2 month break ". Precisely its "Internship" this time. Last time it was more of a job. I thought with that experience it would be now easy to get another, but as usual it took as many days as there are minutes in an hour, only this time it was winter, the last time it was summer. There are many other similarities too. Neither of them had an interview that I expected, ofcourse the ones that were like I expected..... never got back. Whatever, just LIVE and LEARN. Though the jobs mailing list has been pouring with jobs added to which theres CareerLink, the story continues...apply, apply....no reply. Suddenly I get a reply to which I dont apply, I apply later and get it . One things for sure, searching for a job is a full time job. For tons of opportunities that overflow in my inbox, I change my skillset based on the requirement and reply to that mail by attaching my resume. So, you wanna know what are the latest technologies on web development, databases etc. you can get all that on my resume. I was told like forever to do this. Brush up the skills one night before and you are ready to ace the interview. I wish it worked. Nah...it never does. Not for me for sure. My CV is now covering two pages from one previously, after adding skills, skills and more skills. Whatever, I dont have to bother about it for a few more months now, hopefully. BTW, I was forced to quit my last job.....I mean I was er..huh...no.....FIRED!! But again, never forget its all part of the game, LIVE and LEARN.!!