what do you call a person who, because he cannot do better than that, becomes ‘special friend/ just friend/ friend’ with every girl in his vicinity, and by doing so blocks the intentions of other more normal guys ? who cares , right ?

I hate such people. Obvious.

My favorite expression these days is – ‘Holy Fuck!’

You have got to bunk atleast one minor exam in your IIT life. It is plain awesome.

I just want to keep this blog alive.

-Ak

PS : Post to follow soon

Out of the two workshops, the Project management is the one which is easier to remember, easier to describe, and easier to take away home.The entire workshop was organized around one central activity- theme- task whatever – building a wind turbine using lego kits, timed, and that too thrice !

To begin with, all of us present there were divided into groups of 4-5 people, making a total of 4 groups. Each group was then assigned a particular task. Three of us got the three wind-turbine parts – blades, central tower, and the pulley – test mechanism – making us three construction teams, and the fourth team was called ‘The Management team’ . Due to  the large size of class (as it is always the case with Indian students, there are just so many of us), some of us played the role of observers (basically nothing) and ‘Quality Assessment’ guys.

So here are a set of interesting rules we all had to abide by -

1. Each team had the designs of the part it was assigned to. However, no team other than the management team knew the design for the complete wind turbine.

2. There was an ’8 minute planning time’ and ’12 minutes construction time’. In the initial 8 minutes, no one was supposed to enter the building area – or to put it simply, to touch the lego kit.

3. Observers were only to observe the proceedings, and later comment on them, they should not help in any way whatsoever.

4. We had to make two turbines.

So with these rules, we finally set off into the first round of ‘Wind turbine Project’ ( me being a part of central tower construction team)

After Round 1 - Pulley mechanism was complete (two models, it was fairly simple), the blades were almost ready (there was a technical flaw in them, but still in shape, and the tower team, my very own, reached no where with the design. Some of us (including me)  spent most of the time figuring out how to get along with lego parts).

Time for some fundae and management tips, so that by the time we reach the third round, we have something more than experience  to enable us to complete two complete turbines in the alloted time of 12 minutes.

some planning going on

Some of the important lessons we incorporated in our approach towards the third round which I would like to share are -

1. From the timing and critical path method diagram, we identified that the central tower was, to speak in our language, the rate determining step ( even the workshop coordinator acknowledged that the central tower was actually difficult). This implied that even if other construction teams could complete their two models within four minutes, they would have to wait for us till, say, 7-8 minutes. This brought in a scope for late-start for the other teams, giving us enough space in the beginning to streamline our start.

2. We were able to properly identify the roles to be played by each one of us – be it the members of construction teams, the members of management team, or the respective team leaders, ‘Roles’ were finally clear.

3. We now knew how to connect parts in lego kits

Action plan, Workflow diagram, RACI chart, estimating time, ‘using critical path method’ diagram (i am refraining from technical details here), needless to say, we were able to complete the project in the stipulated time of 12 minutes sharp!

a few pics -

PS : “Nothing is impossible for the man who does not have to do it himself” – A. H. Weiler
PS : Use of ‘Post-its‘ is the single most important thing to manage a project.
PS :  Engage in collaborative discussions, always try to extract mutual interests in case of conflicts, and never forget to give the ‘ you should definitely continue doing this ….     ‘ feedback other than the usual ‘start‘ or ‘stop doing this‘ feedbacks.
PS : I have my look alikes in IIT Kanpur, Guwahati and Kharagpur

one which they wish to have,

one which they pretend to have,

and one which they actually have.

What ‘Love’ does is to simply eliminate the second, and bridge the distance between first and third”

PS:    

He stood a stranger in this breathing world,

An erring spirit from another hurled;

A thing of dark imaginings, that shaped

By choice the perils he by chance escaped.

‘Who will gloss these lines for me? Who is this “erring spirit”? Why does he call himself a ‘thing’ ?

‘Lucifer’, he says. The angel hurled out of heaven. Of how angels live we know little, but we can assume they do not require oxygen. At home Lucifer, the dark angel, does not need to breathe. All of a sudden he finds himself cast out into this strange “breathing world” of ours. “Erring” : a being who chooses his own path, who lives dangerously, even creating danger for himself. Let us read further.’

He could

At times resign his own for other’s good,

But not in pity, not because he ought,

But in some strange perversity of thought,

That swayed him onward with a secret pride

To do what few or none would beside;

And this same impulse would in tempting time

Mislead his spirit equally to crime.

‘So what kind of creature is this Lucifer?’

It is to the boy alone that the question has addressed itself; and, like a sleeper summoned to life, the boy responds.

‘He does what he feels like. He does not care if it’s good or bad. He just does it.’

‘Exactly. Good or Bad, he just does it. He does not act on principle, but on impulse, and the  source of this impulse is dark to him. Read a few lines further: “his madness was not of the head, but heart.” A mad heart. What is a mad heart?’

‘Nevermind. Note that we are not asked to condemn this being with the mad heart, this being with whom there is something constitutionally wrong. On the contrary, we are invited to understand and sympathize. But there is a limit to sympathy. For though he lives among us, he is not one of us. He is exactly what he calls himself: a thing, that is a monster. Finally, Byron will suggest, it will not be possible to love him, not in the deeper, more human sense of the word. He will be condemned to solitude.’

PS : These were few lines from the novel -’Disgrace (Coetzee) which I found interesting and worth sharing.

B  :  very well indeed.

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B is a misogynist. B is not me, and G is not you