Teacher/advisor/Attitude problem

Everybody raved about this business valuation class offered by Sarin. It had more followers at one point in time than the movie Avatar has right now (Hyperbole). Turns out all that glitters is not gold. For me both turned into heaps of disappointment. Sarin is a wonderful and talented teacher just that he hardly puts his skills into practice. His projects were fun in fact the curriculum was fun for the first few days and then it slowly started to get under everyone's skin. I was lucky to be in a very very cohesive group where each one of us brought something really good to the table. Some were not just as lucky and had tough time dealing with the other group members. Problem was not that everyone knew everything. The problem was that everyone thought they knew everything when in reality no one knew everything and the one's who did know everything thought they were god's gift to mankind and threw attitude around which annoyed the larger egos.

Stories apart I honestly enjoyed the first few challenges and truth is learnt a lot on my own but then some where I got tired. I got tired of being given gloomy, you try and figure out kind of goals. Sarin could have handled it much better by throwing out some concepts which we did not know in brief and then let us loose on the battle ground. For me I felt as if I was driving motorbikes on rugged terrain when in fact bikes need good roads. I mean in our case bikes came first and then the roads did. Learning seemed an up hill battle. Thanks to an understanding group I made it and so did they.

From my personal experience I would strongly suggest people to take his class only if they have good team mates with some idea as to what is going on in the course otherwise an individual can always learn something else. I wish Sarin could give 100% to what he is teaching. Things would be so much more better. His knowledge and experience is invaluable and something more than a drop for students would go a very very long way.

However on the upside he taught me how to start with nothing and in fact deliver results in a given short period of time. Is not that what MBA's are supposed to do,"handle worst case scenarios?"On the down side I felt that there were so many things that I could and in fact did on my own and did not need a teacher. He always seemed like he taught because he had to teach and not because he wanted to teach. Hmm... what can I say about such people? There are lots of them out there.

For instance my graduate advisor who goofed up my unit calculations and then took almost a month to get it straight. When I requested her to give me a YES before the holidays so that I can file for my OPT she went roaring,"I work for 1400 students you are not the only one." I am glad I have that in black and white. I will send it back to her one day asking,"What do you think would happen if this goes to the Chair Person?." Why do people write their thoughts aloud in an hate email? That too in a country like the US? Where warrior lawyers are eager to sue left, right and center? Maybe she thought I would not do it because I fall in a student category, who, to begin with is an Indian and to end with a female? Well NEWS FOR YOU advisor lady sometimes a demograph like me does do the unimaginable. We do fight against people who oppress us.

Never mind maybe she is upset with too much work that she has. So does that give her the right to be arrogant? I do not know. And I honestly have moved on. What is the point in firing back everyone who is rude to us. Its negative energy anyway. What goes around comes around.

Its all about having a positive attitude. I am glad I stand up for myself and present my case. Having done MBA, I know for sure that there is no point arguing without facts and shouting will never make me right. And being lousy in attitude will only have people write a blog about me. So I hope someday both Sarin and Lady advisor wake up and change their approach as well as their attitude. For now I understand where they both are coming from. But that will not be the case always. So better change than never!

Pain ends

I wake up every morning with the hope that maybe one day all my problems will end. But if they do then what would I do? Imagine a life without any problems or frustrations. How would it feel to wake up every morning knowing that I do not have to worry about my future. I might enjoy that kind of life for a few days and then? Then what? Life would be so very monotonous that I would wish for problems. Whatever I am today is the produce of the hurdles I faced. From morning till noon every action of mine is influenced by a past event. Every dime is weighed before it is spent. Of course! That kind of lifestyle does seem overwhelming at times and sometimes I do wish for days where in I can spend without thinking twice. But overall it is worth the pain. Pain makes us a better person. We value things more than we should. We appreciate smallest of things and we always try not to forget as to where we have come from.

I remember the time in 2006 when most people in this country spent because spending was the 'in thing.' Credit was no big a deal and I found more people in the malls than inside of their homes. Money seemed cheaper than it should be. All in all money had significantly lost its value in the eyes of the people of this country.

Easy money is never a good thing. It is always an indication that something is seriously wrong. As elders have always said,"There is no short cut to success." If anything comes easy it is always better to doubt the origin of the money or think what the catch in it is? Not that people did not know about all this. Just that over a period of time people tend to forget where they have come from and that is what exactly happened. Every one wanted to live the "Great American Dream." A dream that was built on slippery slope and a dream that finally vanished into thin air.

Come to think of it who is ultimately responsible for the miserable state of the economy? People, government? Who? A question even best of financial scholars are struggling to answer. A topic that belongs to "Behavioral Sciences," which says that some people find it easier to spend or just to save and that more people use heart to make the decision about selling or buying stocks. Why no one knows.

From the time man was created striking a balance has always been the most difficult thing to do. I know a person who spends saying," Oh! come on we will all be gone someday. What is the whole point in saving?" And I know another person who says,"Why do we have to spend. Let me save it all so that I can buy a $700,000 house and sell it for a million dollars." I wish I could say both of them were right. Unfortunately they are not. Spending while simultaneously saving is the key to end most of the pain if not all of it. It is important to know what to save for? Saving to buy a house in the form of cash is probably the worst idea I have ever known. In fact saving in the form of cash is the worst investment ever. Cash should only be enough to cover a worst case scenario. Rest should always be invested in equity, bond or a mixture of both would be the best. Respecting money and money's worth is the most important thing in life. "Know it all attitude" is what brought us down on our knees. Hopefully the economy is seeing some daylight and maybe one day America will be what it is modeled for. A capitalist economy which rewards a sensible risk taker in a seamless manner. For that the SEC will have to implement regulations in the strictest manner but in a way that it encourages the worthy and hampers the greedy. They can stop being ignorant and follow what the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Board does. Monitor every single transaction with the eye and agility of an eagle. They can hire a thug to catch a thug. From Madoff to AIG all did what they did because the SEC respected them for their integrity which none of them did have. This is called the HALO EFFECT. The belief that the GIANT can do no wrong. Well wrong was done and pain was indeed inflicted on people. Money came in easy and lost its importance but when it did gain respect things had gone from bad to worse.

I know the crisis will end maybe today or maybe in a month but when it does I pray that money comes in the hard way, and people know to save it prudently. Because it is only when the pain ends that money losses its respect in the eyes of the people and things start falling apart.

Taking lessons from history therefore I hope that even if I do get what I want in life I always have some pain in life. So that no matter where I am in life I always know where I came from.

May Christmas Hail cuz everything's on sale!

I could not believe my eyes when I saw things that I could buy for cheap. I started with one and then went on to the next and moved on to the other one, by the time I was done I had this huge pile of stuff that I bought for a bargain. Well thats what I thought until I saw the bill. Yep, I almost fainted. Just because I bought everything for less I had not realized that I had bought too many things. This is what I call as Holiday Sale Hypnosis. I just went into this state where it seemed like I was programmed only to 'BUY" things. Buy this, buy that, Oh! look at that one, that's so cheap. As I said once I came out of the shock I decided to draw the line and kept the ones I needed and returned the ones I did not want. Whatever it is, holidays are a blessing in disguise, they bring joy, happiness and super bargain deals with them. How I love Christmas. Merry Christmas to all!

Tiger strays!

I remember the day I oohed and ahhed over Tiger Woods. Then I heard and read about the wedding he had with this swimsuit model/nanny. I always thought and appreciated him for his talent. I was glad that he never got into any controversies. Life was smooth and then one day I hear what I should not have heard. I heard that Tiger strayed. I was disappointed and sorry for his wife and kids for about thirty seconds to be exact and then with the feeling that,"Well whether we like it or not Tiger did stray" I moved on. And am eagerly awaiting to see him play more so that I can continue to see his talent and not read things that trash him. I am not in favor of what he did but I am an ardent fan of Tiger Woods and not his personal life. So Tiger stop straying and start playing.

Abuse, half the sky, and, women!

As I read and am still reading Half the Sky I was stunned to see that most abuse against women is either done, instigated or supported by women. For instance a mother-in-law triggers problems between couples and then persuades her son to physically, verbally or emotionally abuse his wife, another woman. And what's worse is that sons are made to believe by such mothers that it is OK to abuse a woman to show her, her place or teach her a lesson.

 Unbelievable! First I was in denial but then come to think of it, is not it true? My maid in India came home abused every single day. Her mother in law would take all the money she earned and blame that she was hiding some more. Drunk son would release his energy by abusing his wife, my maid. When I asked her why she was still with her husband? She would timidly reply,"I live with him and die with him. Where can I go? I have little children." Had my maid been educated may be then she would have walked out on her abusive husband. If not walked out at least retaliated. 

Yesterday I was talking to my aunt who mentioned that her friend divorced her husband of twenty five years. Quite unusual in India. Divorce itself is a stigma in India and if a woman gets divorced very young then life for her is practically over. I am not saying that a man is wrong or a woman is right. Just that men are not just as stigmatized as women in India. Pretty unfortunate I would say. To get back to my conversation with my aunt who was horrified over what happened and kept stressing how wrong it was for her friend to leave her husband and at one point even mentioned that her friend was not what she looked, that she was abusive too! (This I found hilarious since I have known her friend too). Seems like my aunt wanted to somehow think that the man was right and the woman WRONG! I on the other hand was glad that the lady did the right thing. I have known her husband just as long and have seen him come home drunk every day, abuse her and sometimes get other women. The only reason she stayed in the marriage was because she was not very educated and of course for the kids. She knew if she left early, her husband, would never give her their kids plus she had no support financial, emotional or educational. What would she do? Now her kids all grown up have taken her in and have started retaliating against their father. Having said that does it still make it right for people to blame the wife for the divorce? I do not know. My aunt is of an older generation where women stayed with their spouses no matter how the man treated her. But for my generation it is unimaginable. Based on my thoughts I did tell my aunt to not talk ill of her friend but support her because this is the time I know for sure her friend will need her the most. Also I reminded her that she was a woman too and asked her to put herself in her friends shoes. In spite of my persuasion my aunt was like,"Nooo Roopa....!" 

Well I will not be able to change my aunt but will stand by women who are indeed abused and not name or trash them. Reading half the sky makes me realize that education is one tool that can make women independent in every way. I was blessed to have a cocooned life but to assume that every one has the same is a misnomer. This book is such an eye opener that I am inclined to work for the cause. I may not be able to change the world but if I can change lives of a few women that would be worth the effort.

Driving in bay area drives me crazy!

Here I was listening to Miley's song, 'Party in the USA' and driving in a two lane road/freeway (As if people in bay area follow speed limits to categorize roads as freeway, two lane, three lane or whatever) on a Friday night at the speed of 50 mph when I suddenly  reduce my speed to accommodate two slow moving cars in either lanes right in front of me. Believe it or not these cars were driving at 40 mph! I wanted to yell at the driver driving on the left lane,"Hey, moron if you want to drive slow then move to the right lane. Why are you parallel driving with someone just like you?" Yeah right! As if I call some one moron the person will humbly accept that he/she is a moron and pay attention to what I have to say. Worst part I could not even honk. To combat the problem I tailgated the slow moving car on the left lane. Result the car in the front did not budge. Now this is what I call as the 'worst-fate' scenarios. I mean what else could it possibly be? Sometimes there is hope for instance if the guy, fortunately I must say, turns right from the right lane then I can manage to zoom my way to glory. 

However this does not happen all the time. There are times when I am  stuck in similar scenario and neither car turns any where. What do I do then? I tailgate just as much as I can, curse  them under my breath and finally give up. 

People driving slow are unique species of their own kind. Freeway or pricy way it does not matter to them. Their motto is drive slow and annoy every one else, who cares! Then there are those who suddenly move to the next lane without switching the indicator on. And some who wait all the time in the left signal and on green go straight. How weird is that! How do such irresponsible or say dumb drivers get their driving license? A mystery I have never been able to solve. 

On Friday night when I faced slow drivers driving at 40 mph in a 50 mph zone I just could not take it. I decided to protest by non stop tailgating each one of them. My logic was at least one of them will get scared. Turns out none of them was even aware that I existed. Well I gave up. I compromised thinking this could be worse if I were in India. Worse or better? Let's see people in India honk all the time no matter what. And it's good because they send the message right across and people LEAVE WAY! Hello I know safety is important but not driving right is equally dangerous. I mean I could get annoyed and bump straight into the slow moving car!

When I was in Austin, Texas, people would cut into your way but make it sure to raise hand to thank as well as apologize for the unacceptable behavior. In bay area there is no concept of raising hands. Here people raise hands only to show their middle finger. Well for the first few days I felt bad but turns out now I do the same. In fact my middle finger has an artificially intelligent mind of its own. I guess its like what the Romans say,"When in bay area be like a bay arean." Yes, I created the word arean don't freak out. I am sure someday it will make it to the dictionary the way other senseless words do. 

Now on Friday gave up I did but then an unusual thing happened. The slow moving car wanted to change lanes to the right. Apparently with me tailgating and the car in the right lane moving equally slow the driver was stuck and missed the turn. Man! my happiness knew no bounds. For once the driver who drove me nuts had faced frustration. As a result the driver had no choice but to drive faster from then on. He/She had experienced my pain. 

I hope all  drivers who make driving hard for others learn similar lessons the hard way and thereafter drive better in order to make driving in bay area a pleasant experience and not a tedious frustrating chore.