A look at 2005

This was one of the finest years in my life. I took some bold decisions this year, which I believe, would impact my future significantly.

One of the boldest decisions was to refuse the post of onsite coordinator at Paris after waiting for it for around 6 months. The posting was supposed to be for around 1 year in duration. Though not a decision taken in 2005 this started the chain of other decisions.

The next one was to leave L&T Infotech and join Capgemini in March 2005. This decision turned out to be a better one than what I had anticipated. Even though I missed the nice people at L&T Infotech my life now was much better. The traveling to and from the office was way easier. Also my project in Capgemini allowed me to leave for home at exactly 6:00 pm each day. So I was now able to spend more time with my family. At times I also had some spare time in the office which I used to read a lot on the net. Especially the discussions on slashdot and articles on wikipedia had significant impact on the way I think. It prompted me to think about any issue in 360 degrees. This was helpful for me in my daily work as well. I believe I could handle some of the issues quickly here in Capgemini, thanks to the improved thinking process.

I decided that this extra time at hand should be put to some constructive use. So I joined MBA course from ICFAI in June 05. I am very happy I made this decision. Though initially I was skeptical about whether I would like to study subjects which are not technical or related to IT/Software/Computers. I am thoroughly enjoying studying for MBA.

This mention of technology reminds me of a no so bold decision I took immediately after I joined Capgemini. Most of the time of my professional career, I have worked on C/C++/Unix technology. And I have fully enjoyed working with it to the extent that I thought I might not like "other" technologies at all. The people around me also seem to support this view. I think Capgemini do not have many projects which require a skill set of C/C++/Unix. So I had to be on bench for the first week after I joined Capgemini. I decided not to stick with the technology I love and joined a project on Java technology. This decision also paid off better than what I bargained for. This project was less challenging than the projects I handled in L&T Infotech. But that meant I performed much better than the expectations of my superiors and was able to solve some long pending issues quickly even though the technology was totally new to me. This was well appreciate by my manager and I got the best rating in both mid-year and end-year performance appraisals. Now I am eagerly waiting for the increment letter that would be handed to me soon :-)

But the most significant decision was to go for another child. Initially I was of the opinion that the Indian population is already very high. So one should restrict himself/herself to a single child. But my wife challenged my views and we had some long discussions. We finally decided to go for another child so that the kids have company of each other and do not feel lonely. Both me and my wife were brought up with siblings which we thought induced a feeling of care and sharing with others. In our view it is very difficult to keep single kids from spoiling due to extra pampering they get. So now we are waiting for the baby to arrive in the coming year.

I am eager to face the new year. With the arrival of my baby and more demanding study schedule (4 subject to study each quarter as compared to 2 subjects we study currently) and most probably with some another project, I am anticipating it to be more eventful than 2005

Updates


My last blog came in end of August. Now its a long time and I thought I should update the blog.
I scored good marks in the first MBA exam (75 in introduction to Management and 86 in Business communications). I am satisfied with that performance :-) . This time I have to face two totally new subjects:
1) Financial Accounting
2) Economics.

Currently I am fighting with Accounting. I tend to do silly mistakes in the calculation or mess up in one of the corrections. Since the exam is objective in nature, any smallest of the mistakes would prove fatal. The exams are on 22nd and 29th January. I have already started the studies but havent picked up enough momentum. A few things are cropping up as a speedbreaker. But I know I will soon dedicate more time towards the studies. I am finding Economics bit easier may be because I am finding it more interesting than Accounting. But its fun to study these subjects. I am very glad I joined MBA. I would recommend taking the step to all the people who are just planning to join.

Another good news, that I would like to announce on the blog is that Shilpa, my wife, is pregnant for the second time. The baby is expected in the last week of February or first week of March. My daughter Shalaka (she is 3.5 yrs old now) is very impatient about when the baby will arrive. We faced a tough time answering her questions about who/when /how put the baby in her Mother's stomach ;-).

Overall the things are pretty much fine. The workload in office is just perfect. I manage to leave exactly at 6:00 in the evening. I am anticipating more eventful days once the baby arrives.

I have decided to update the blog more regularly. so do come back to read more. I will not wait for new year to come to make a resolution. Its always a good time to start good things.