How to live life more meaningful? So much clueless....

Writing this blog after a gap of eight years, it would be eight years of being on the same job in Dec'19. Eight years ago, I was desperate to get a job and now it's just mundane and no excitement in life which has started me question on how to live life which is meaningful at this age, where every day could be remembered after 10 years from now.

One thing I am very clear is money cannot alone bring fulfillment to your life, working in Silicon Valley without any obligations and responsibilities, money was never an issue. Went through some troubling personal life phase but that is ok, it does not bother me much neither it has affected me in any way to write this blog.

Few things which stuck me that could be the reason for this situation could be-:
1. Living away from parents and family at this age.
2. Getting into comfort zone and not trying new things (new challenging and higher paying job).
3. Lack of new social circle.
4. Health and getting overweight.
5. Not having a goal.

Not sure what to write more, may be I will visit here again after few years and see how the life is then.

Haunting dreams....

If you already don't know, I have two master's degrees from United States. To complete Master's degree one has to complete certain number of credits. In my first master degree I had to complete 30 credits where as in my 2nd Master's degree I had to complete 45 credits.
Now while sleeping during night time, I get nightmares such as I am in India doing job or on long vacations. I am feeling totally uncomfortable since I haven't completed both of my master's degree, I need to return back to US to complete remaining credits from both the degrees. So much time and effort I spent in studies and couldn't complete it?(weird dream) and now I am old, doing job in India with repentful life of not completing studies, which might take an year, one semester in each university to complete, along with taking visa. Did I mentioned about my car parked at airport when I left for India and now I need to take care of the parking bills. 

What to do?

Recently, I saw a lot of recommendation given to each other of my team where I was working during summers, with some investigation I got to know that 50% of my team has been laid off. My mentor, my manager, my good friend and some others all laid off. Then I started pondering what could be the reason that these people were laid off and rest were not. These points I think will make me better in the coming times.

1) The work you are doing, does it fit well with your background. What I mean to say is, for example my mentor is a software engineer but was working in services team primarily consisting of Environment Engineers and yes all were from Berkeley, Stanford, Waterloo. How much ground do you hold if you are switching to new field against them in this fragile economy.

2) How much relevant work is given to you in the team you are working in, for example, if you are in Services consulting team, you implement software for your clients. Do you get the opportunity to implement and face clients, if others in your team are facing clients and you are put in some mundane work which might be important but not generating revenue for the company, it should raise red flag for you.

3) Do you have the persona to be in that team. What I mean is, do you have a good looking face, easy going liberal personality, willing to accept other person's thoughts and ideas. Some people get in easily because of their GPA or credentials but don't last long.

4) You are plain unlucky, which means nothing is absolute in this world and everything is relative. Even though you are doing your work very well, still things were beyond your control.

5) Your lavish lifestyle which your organization has to pay for it. Like my manager, he was pretty lavish with bi weekly team lunches, buying macs and ipads on company's expense. Then going on holidays, working from home on fridays and not joining intern final get together where all other team managers and CEO was there. These small small things in this fragile economy counts a lot, plus not to mention not even a single reply to many emails wrote to him, in the name of being busy??

Lame!

For the past 3 months I was doing internship at Energy Management start-up in a place close to San Francisco. After working there I realized even if the job market is not good I don't want to work in that firm anyway.

The work was interesting and I did learn a lot from internship specially J2EE framework based web development but apart from work I have nothing good to say about the company.

It's such a small company ~70 employee but it's so secretive and politicized that one can't comprehend, every day in my group someone was cribbing that his/her work is not appreciated, don't tell this and that outside the group, why a person from outside group is in their social networking group WTF!!

One thing I have learnt from this internship is to figure out Important people who are actually useful in solving some problem in hand, just telling everyone your problem just end up making a mockery of oneself. Also, before joining make sure which group you would be working in, is your work important and related to them, like for myself I was software engineer but my team mates were environment consultants so there was nothing common, they just like iPad interface that's it, they are not much concerned with back-end stuff. One more thing to understand is how you fit in the team structure, in my case I can say I had worst possible structure where there was a functional mentor and a product manager, if functional mentor doesn't communicate with product manager about my progress then he has no idea and when I used to goto PM he used to tell me talk to your functional manager, you see how much things were fucked up and yes it was start up environment.

On day one try to figure out which Email list are important to you and get into it proactively than thinking your mentor will do it, may be he/she is busy in his/her work and you miss out group meeting or lunches coz of this.

I had some problems in using framework went to engineering department and hardly anyone helped except one lady who was also monitored by her manager and was asked to do her own work than helping me WTF again!! She used to come to my part of building to help me so that she is not under scanner by her group or manager, can you imagine how fucked up things were in a 70 employee company?? Neither I got any code sample to see how things work.

I was so happy when days were coming to end of internship. Thank god I am out! The best part of internship is that it's not only employer can see you as right fit or not but you can also judge company and co-workers as right fit for yourself or not.

I still remember what I did last summers!

Last summers of '10 has been one of the most exciting summers yet in many years last being in 2006 in Twin Cities in Minnesota. Summers started with much needed internship in a very good company which is now getting more and more famous as days are passing. Spent good amount of time on exercising, exploring San Francisco.

At the end of August, I went to Chicago to meet my good old undergraduate friends Viren and Harsimran, it was very nice meeting them almost after good 5 years. We went to many places such as Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where we rented a speed boat and had an hour long fun, then walking on lake shore drive in Chicago, watching the mesmerizing skyline of Chicago downtown, going to Navy Pier, driving on our rented Mazda 6 on Lake Shore driving and going every night to Devon St to eat Indian food. Did a lot of naughty stuff too in Indiana but hey we are single and always ready to mingle.

Come September, my dad asked to visit him in Philadelphia, met him after 3.5 years, he still the same active and strong. Stayed in his ship for one night and said bye bye to him on the next day. I was to meet Julie in Philadelphia but things didn't work out well. Then, I headed to NYC to meet my dear friends Hui, Mandeep and Rohit. Hui and me went to many places such as Sarvana Bhavan, she had her first time eating south Indian food and somewhat liked but the most she liked about Sarvana Bhavan was their toilets, I know it's hilarious but it's true. That night Mandy took to some Greek Mediterranean restaurant had some lamb and sea food. After that we decided to head to some bar, Mandy has developed good taste and recommended us 230 5th ave Rooftop bar. It is an upscale bar where you can see Empire Estate building on your back, had like 3 tequilla shots, 1 scotch and half of Hui's left over drink. This got me tipsy and you gotta see Hui's reaction the next day. She was totally pissed.

Next day we went to Bubba Gump's Shrimp Factory restaurant in Times Square, had shrimp and fish, it was nice and I also watched Knight Shylam's Devil. It was also ok. At late evening I met Rohit after like 12 yrs and we went to some Thai place, I couldn't eat much since I already had Stone Cold Ice cream before that, after all this went back to Hui's place to pack my stuff and Mandy came to Greyhound port authority station to drop me off to Phily bus station from where I had my flight to San Francisco.

During last week of Sept, there is a festival called Folsom Street Fair, I had an opportunity to go over there I heard a lot about it but was totally thrilled to see it with my own eyes. It was basically to do with Leather and BDSM but I saw so much nudity, sex and oral sex that I was totally surprised to see it happening during day time, openly and at such scale.

In the end, I did so much things in a period of 3 months which are worth keeping in the memory box if I had one.

Yet Another Internship!

Finally after so much trying I finally landed getting an internship, it has been an eventful and full with hardship and struggle getting this one unlike the previous one at Vital Images, may be time has changed or something?
I applied to many places, mostly at high places and gave some interviews too but nothing worked out? god knows why but finally end up getting one, this was the aim for summers and at-least the aim is complete.
The assignment I am handed over is something that I have never done before but is very relevant in web 2.0+ world, something to do with social networking, marketing and ads, and have to make some sort of code generator that I till today have no idea about but somehow I have this feeling from inside based on previous work experiences that I can finish up this task very soon.
Apart from work, I have taken one Python based summer course and getting back to shape is something I am actively working on these summers. Biking is also I am into.

Let's see how summers go by, I am very much excited about it though reasons I really don't know.

Time just flies by!!

On 23rd Oct, 1995 I saw DDLJ (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayegein), I still remember the date as that time was full of excitement and exuberance, since the same day it was chotti (small) Diwali so after watching such a wonderful movie( on the first day) I was bursting cracker, and if you have ever lived in New Delhi, winters are amazing air is filled with sound of band and music since marriage season starts from Oct and last till Jan.
I have no idea how these 14 years went by, life was smooth, thanks to parents and still it is but don't know a desire to do something on my own, earning good amount of money to keep not only keep myself but also people around me happy and also to donate some to charities. Incidentally, I also watched "Wake up Sid" today, I can somehow correlate my life to that movie, at one time I had coolest friend-circle no studying just having fun and now everything is gone, I am studying most of the time but difference only being I don't know will it ever be useful since economy is no mood to revive and hence hardly any jobs.
Never felt so much un-motivated and directionless in whole of my life.