Let me step out of the serious world and delve upon a few topics of interest. First is Golf. Yes, this was a game, which I always thought was rather stupid. And finally I tried the stupid thing. The week before last, I decided to sign up for the golf club in my office. The feeling behind doing that was 'Let me at least try and see what it is '. And 'While I am in US, let me try and explore something which is easily available here and not available back home'. I remember in the city of Bombay, where I come from, I have just seen one golf course in Chembur, when I used to go to VESIT (my wife's college) during my courtship days.
With all that background, I did sign up for the golf club and when I did that, I got to know that this club has just 4 members : The SVP of my office, a senior director, a technical writer and now me. The first 3 are experienced players. In fact, I later got to know that the senior director is a champ. I know the writer at a person level and decided to talk to him and see if he could teach me some basics. To my delight, he offered to take me to a driving range that was close by from my office. Unfortunately, the weather did not hold for the next 3 days and the plan finally materialized on a Thursday. We stepped out of office at 5 pm on day with me continuously trying to keep up with him, who was in a 2 door BMW.
We reached the driving range and parked our cars. The first thing he told me that he is an average player. Now, as if I really cared about that. What mattered to me was that this guy knows the game. I hardly cared how well he knew it as long as he knew the basics and he could pass it on to me. And most of the gentlemen would make that statement before they teach anyone else. At least I would do that had I been in his shoes :-) . We picked up 2 baskets of golf balls and headed toward the striking area.
The tutoring started with his showing me the various kinds of clubs. Broadly, there are two types - wooden and iron. Now, this will be a memory test – wooden ones range from 1 to 7 and irons range from 2 to 9. In both the types, the ones with least number are the most effective in terms of how high or long the they send the ball. And plus wooden ones hit the ball longer and iron ones hit the ball higher. So an iron-2 will hit the ball much higher than what an iron-5 would. And a wooden 1 will hit the ball much longer than what a wooden 4 would.
Next thing was taking position. How much to spread the legs and how to hold the club. Overall, a right handed guy should use his left hand more and the right hand must just follow through with the swing. Shoulders should be kept straight and this was difficult to achieve. With all this, my first 10 shots were the worst. I was within 30 yards. And my last 10 shots were the best. I was beyond 90 yards.
During my first 10 shots, one of these things happened - my legs went up, I lost my balance, I did not make contact with the ball, my club hit the ground and I hurt my hands. But my friend was very patient and he kept correcting me at every stage. After the initial hiccups, I did make contact, but either the ball went too right or way too left. Now, when the ball travels too right its called a ‘slice’. I don’t recollect what is said when the ball travels left. But I will try to recollect that, hopefully by my next post.
Practice made me much better and I was making decent contact 7 out of 10 times towards the end. My friend said I did great considering that I was playing for the first time. I was happy. The next day, he sent me an email with all the key terms of Golf. I am still to go through it.
At the end of the day, I thought to myself, 'It wasn't stupid after all. Not only because I played it but also because there is so much more to it than just hitting the ball with that club'. The other thing I liked about the game was the green patch of land in front of us. Its peaceful to see the green and its really quiet out there. And I liked that. So that was a nice "golfful" day.
P.S – When I started writing the post, I was going to talk about one more interesting topic. But the first topic ate up so much real estate that I will keep the second topic for my next post
Monday, June 23, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Long term goal
Have you ever thought "What I want to be in my life ? Am I headed towards that in what I am doing right now ?" Almost everyone must have given this question a thought while in school/college. But does everyone in his/her work life think about this at least once in a single calendar year. And I bet you, the answer will be not everyone does it every year.
So why doesn't everyone ponder over this question once in a while ? Are we so much focused on the present that there is no time and opportunity ? I think the answer is yes. But this is just one category of the people. I think the other category is folks who are doing quite well in their life, have decent and stress free life but are not those kinds who will sit and ponder on such questions.
I must say I belong and now don’t want to belong to the second type. In my quest for MBA, such questions do come up. These are the important ones which the adcoms use to select from a huge applicant pool. So having a clear answer for these questions is important.
Today was a relatively quiet day and I stepped out for a walk, thinking maybe I will find an answer. From MBA essay standpoint, its important to express how your career progression has been , what is your goal and how a MBA will help you achieve that. This is the general theme for the typically the first essay - "Why MBA".
Being a IT engineer, I belong to the most common types. Based upon my talks with some of my friends who are currently pursuing their MBA or passed out, Finance, IB, Consultancy, Strategy, Marketing, General Management are some of the broad fields which candidates enter post MBA. Now which one do I choose. Consultancy, Strategy and General Management appeared to be the most logical fields for me. Given my background, I thought I could really build up my case keeping these fields in mind for my post MBA career.
So today I tried to answer the next question. What about the long term ? Say 20 or 25 years down the line ? Where do I want to go ? I thought maybe if I try to think about so much down the line, I will know where I want to be and try and connect the dots. Well, this is what happened. I ran in to more difficulty.
I started with "To be head of a large organization will be good" And then asked myself ,"Thats it ? Is that the maximum you want to achieve ? Whenever you do become one, do you think you would sit down and say, this is what I wanted all my life ! And now I have achieved it" I said to myself, "No. This is not it. There has to be something larger - something with a social cause in it. Something with a human touch. Being a head of a large organization can't be the ultimate goal. "
So then what can be the ultimate goal ? Without running the risk of being too philosophical, I thought for a while - "Maybe the ultimate goal can be to make the literacy rate of India to 100%." Now that’s a goal which can be called a Ultimate goal. But there was a maybe there.
This is when I told myself that maybe at this stage, its important to look maybe just 10 yr down the line and the ultimate goal and be rethought with a MBA and with good amount of post MBA experience.
So why doesn't everyone ponder over this question once in a while ? Are we so much focused on the present that there is no time and opportunity ? I think the answer is yes. But this is just one category of the people. I think the other category is folks who are doing quite well in their life, have decent and stress free life but are not those kinds who will sit and ponder on such questions.
I must say I belong and now don’t want to belong to the second type. In my quest for MBA, such questions do come up. These are the important ones which the adcoms use to select from a huge applicant pool. So having a clear answer for these questions is important.
Today was a relatively quiet day and I stepped out for a walk, thinking maybe I will find an answer. From MBA essay standpoint, its important to express how your career progression has been , what is your goal and how a MBA will help you achieve that. This is the general theme for the typically the first essay - "Why MBA".
Being a IT engineer, I belong to the most common types. Based upon my talks with some of my friends who are currently pursuing their MBA or passed out, Finance, IB, Consultancy, Strategy, Marketing, General Management are some of the broad fields which candidates enter post MBA. Now which one do I choose. Consultancy, Strategy and General Management appeared to be the most logical fields for me. Given my background, I thought I could really build up my case keeping these fields in mind for my post MBA career.
So today I tried to answer the next question. What about the long term ? Say 20 or 25 years down the line ? Where do I want to go ? I thought maybe if I try to think about so much down the line, I will know where I want to be and try and connect the dots. Well, this is what happened. I ran in to more difficulty.
I started with "To be head of a large organization will be good" And then asked myself ,"Thats it ? Is that the maximum you want to achieve ? Whenever you do become one, do you think you would sit down and say, this is what I wanted all my life ! And now I have achieved it" I said to myself, "No. This is not it. There has to be something larger - something with a social cause in it. Something with a human touch. Being a head of a large organization can't be the ultimate goal. "
So then what can be the ultimate goal ? Without running the risk of being too philosophical, I thought for a while - "Maybe the ultimate goal can be to make the literacy rate of India to 100%." Now that’s a goal which can be called a Ultimate goal. But there was a maybe there.
This is when I told myself that maybe at this stage, its important to look maybe just 10 yr down the line and the ultimate goal and be rethought with a MBA and with good amount of post MBA experience.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Visiting Central Park
Entering Central Park in Manhattan yesterday did not bring back many memories as I don't happen to be a frequent visitor to that place. But I have always been fascinated by that place. The concept of a huge green patch in the middle of a large metro city may seem so simple yet it is so much overlooked back home in Mumbai. So when I first visited Central Park, back in Feb 2007, I was in much love with it. Roughly, spanning across 40 streets in NYC, which is 3-4 miles as distance between 2 streets is 0.1 mile, this park has a width of 0.5 mile, making it a 3.4 square mile of absolute green patch in a city where land prices are sky high - such a big boon to the city dwellers and to people commuting daily to the city.
New York city, the most vibrant in US, fast paced and where people are always running either to catch a train, attend a meeting, grab their lunch, or sign off a deal. If someone walks around midtown and downtown areas of Manhattan where most of the offices are located, from 8 am to 5 pm during a weekday, that person will tend to have just this single impression of NYC. But you go a little uptown and enter the Central Park area. The picture changes completely. Sometimes I wonder where do New Yorkers get their energy from. And I am sure Central Park must be one of the biggest contributor.
Every person you see in Central Park has a cheer on his face. You will see all kinds of people in this park. Jogging, cycling, walking, sitting on a bench - relaxing, napping, reading and the list goes on. But one thing which is common among all is that they all want to get away from the busy city life and find solace in this refreshing environment. Indeed, who wont need that peace after a grueling day at work. Not to mention, the park must be doing much more than you and I can imagine to keep the eco balance of the city in check. There are acres and acres of green lawns, tall and old trees, some of them probably more than a hundred years old. The park also has 50 statues of various famous American personalities encouraging admirers to take pictures of the fine art work. There are at least 2 lakes in the park, where there are ducks, fish and water in them is quite clean. Another aspect of the park, which I liked is that the park is not uniform and does not have a set pattern of trees, lawns or fountains. This is unlike some of the famous parks in India, like Vrindavan Garden, Mysore, where everything has a pattern. And the variation gives it a much natural look and you don’t know what you can expect to see next.
Of course, this was only my second visit to the park. I am sure there are more to come and more to discover about this park. The Central Park Conservancy, a not for profit organization, takes care of this park and full marks to them for doing a great job for giving a life to New Yorkers outside of their offices !
New York city, the most vibrant in US, fast paced and where people are always running either to catch a train, attend a meeting, grab their lunch, or sign off a deal. If someone walks around midtown and downtown areas of Manhattan where most of the offices are located, from 8 am to 5 pm during a weekday, that person will tend to have just this single impression of NYC. But you go a little uptown and enter the Central Park area. The picture changes completely. Sometimes I wonder where do New Yorkers get their energy from. And I am sure Central Park must be one of the biggest contributor.
Every person you see in Central Park has a cheer on his face. You will see all kinds of people in this park. Jogging, cycling, walking, sitting on a bench - relaxing, napping, reading and the list goes on. But one thing which is common among all is that they all want to get away from the busy city life and find solace in this refreshing environment. Indeed, who wont need that peace after a grueling day at work. Not to mention, the park must be doing much more than you and I can imagine to keep the eco balance of the city in check. There are acres and acres of green lawns, tall and old trees, some of them probably more than a hundred years old. The park also has 50 statues of various famous American personalities encouraging admirers to take pictures of the fine art work. There are at least 2 lakes in the park, where there are ducks, fish and water in them is quite clean. Another aspect of the park, which I liked is that the park is not uniform and does not have a set pattern of trees, lawns or fountains. This is unlike some of the famous parks in India, like Vrindavan Garden, Mysore, where everything has a pattern. And the variation gives it a much natural look and you don’t know what you can expect to see next.
Of course, this was only my second visit to the park. I am sure there are more to come and more to discover about this park. The Central Park Conservancy, a not for profit organization, takes care of this park and full marks to them for doing a great job for giving a life to New Yorkers outside of their offices !
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