Cheap dinners

So why is London awesome?

That's because 10 o clock in the night, you can use your all-day pass one more time on the tube (subway). So you go to Picaddily Circus, see the lights. Then you walk all the way to Charing Cross seeing Trafalgar Square (this on a cold, rainy day). And then you take a tube to Leicester Square and have a filling enormous slice of vegetable pizza from the same place.

Thanks to M.A.S. (still sticking to initials only policy) for being my "guide" in the above journey.

Regards,
Omer.

London Today

Ok, so I'm at the Canary Wharf. And it hasn't disappointed. Really, really impressive tall, sleek buildings (this from an Abu Dhabi-ite) with lots and lots of people rushing from one side to the other and vice versa. Right now in "Cabot Place East" - a big indoor shopping boulevard - where I discovered I could use wi-fi and thought I'd update. Thinking about how it wouldn't be bad to work here.

Anyways, we had the Graduate Program Induction today. The LSE director opened it and welcomed us. Was quite a nice welcome. His short speech mentioned the 'undemocratic' state of British politics, the recent Ashes victory and Kate Moss, amongst other things. ("What denomination currency note did Kate Moss "allegedly" use to snort cocaine?" was one of the questions on how "acquainted" we were to the British current affairs).

Yawning.

They say that even talking or reading about yawning can make you yawn. Tell me if that's true (hint: use the comment option below). The other day I was on the tube, returning after another tiring accomodation-hunting trip in and around central london, when I caught a glimpse of a man in the carriage behind mine enjoying a good yawn. The reaction in me was immediate. A second later I was yawning myself. There still seem to be very less explanation of why exactly we yawn, though there are quite some theories. For more see: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question572.htm

Another strange facial action is crying. How suddenly tears start dropping from the eyes. I couldn't stop crying the other day (and again just a while ago). I still am not able to find the exact cause though I know the images that trigger the action. What I am not sure is if what feeling of those images make the tears flow. Is it the feeling of being unable to give as much love to the "objects" in these images as they deserve? Or is it the fact that being suddenly displaced from being in a very lovable setting myself, I am suddenly placed again in another similar setting? If it were the first, the action is mainly emotional and voluntary. If the latter it is more of an involuntary reaction relatively.

In any case, the moral seems to be that once one finds out people who need his/her love, he/she should try to give as much of it to the them as possible.

(PS: And I thought being unattached would ensure no emotional breakdowns).

Overwhelming... (and silly smiles/evil grins)

So many trains and tube lines. So many ads in trains and stations. So many vehicles on the road.
So many (smartly dressed) people. So many places. So many faces. (I've prob'ly NEVER seen so many people per second all my life as in the rush hour).
So many houses in so many areas to chose form. That's London for me. Overwhelming.

But then there are places I dreamed of that I now can go to everyday. The books, the library, the seminars, the halls, the lectures, the coffee at plaza cafe'. That's another London. (Silly grin)

Next...

There is definitely a time when one has HAD enough of a place. These are my last days (so to speak) in UAE and I've been getting this "over with it" feeling about places within it for some time. It started on a smaller scale, when I did not feel going to places that I had 'used' - places I would earlier go to enquire about prices and compare features of the various items that I needed to buy. Whereas earlier I would head to these outlets with anticipation and excitement, now, after having bought whatever I wanted to, these places seem just ordinary. No special meaning anymore. No Anticipation. No Excitement.

I realize its the same way about the whole place. I was born here and shall definitely have an attachment to the place, especially this city, all my life. But thanks mostly to the job and partly to my inquisitive nature, I believe I have seen almost everything there was to see in the whole of the country. I doubt if I could see anything more that would not be unimpressive. That would make me feel like it was worth the time. Or the resources (more on that later). It most definitely seems like the time to move on.

On resources: "Resources" is the key word in life. It is the potential/life/blood in you. It is what YOU have to improve things. To make life better. Every step we take, every task we undertake, every obstacle we overtake, we need to realize whether the resources consumed in it were worth it. Resources are finite. We need to keep stock of them.

Hangin' out with office mates

Hung out with these 2 guys from work - (and as usual, I'm not sure of disclosing identity completely, so I'll have to use initials) MA and RL. I'm happy the movie was bad. That'd make it harder to forget. The Cave. Heh. What were we thinking? Really enjoyed that dolphin game (dying for revenge, MA). Great to hang out on the sea shore and talk about tsunamis, Katrinas (the nasty one) and throwing cats in the water.

A little sad that you guys took so long to join, but however little it was (it being the amount of time we had between us) it was great. Hope these 2 have great careers and lives.

In Retrospection...

Lots to write about. Have been able to read a lot ever since my last day at work. Quite a content feeling when you finish a book that you've wanted to in a long time. And then another. And hopefully another soon. More on the books later but first on my new 'freedom.'

I agree with Scott Adams (Dilbert creator and author "The Dilbert Principle" and "The Religion War" - both highly recommended) when he says one should not work at one place for more than two years. (I agree with most of Scott Adams advice on handling the IT-firm corporate culture. His "The Dilbert Principle" should infact be made compulsory reading for an engineer before he/she can graduate into the big bad life-force sucking corporate world).

Ofcourse it would be wrong to generalize and large organisations that take very good care of you and your furniture and your kids and their education still exist, but most of us prob'ly work in one of the smaller firms that provide some sort of service to these large organisations and are not as lucky. (or if you're really unlucky, in firms that provide services to firms that provide services to these organisations). Two years is more than enough in today's world of cutting-costs, smaller profits, long hours, (afternoon shifts,) not to mention increasing oil prices. Two years is enough to make you learn the tricks of the trade and move on. Maybe even if the experience is bad and you find out you're stuck in a rut, two years won't be a bad idea as it'll ensure the lessons learnt are not forgotten too soon.

Ofcourse it's good to be a little stingy and save as you work so that you CAN think about making that move after two years.

Another reason why a break from the job should be necessary is that it makes you think about it from the outside. While at work we may follow orders and go about our tasks blindly, its only when we are not attached to the job any more that we can take a critical view of it. The 'once-serving men-in-uniform' political analysts of today who are strong critics of govt. policies are a case in point. Another example is of the atomic scientists who were part of the Manhattan Project and later became strong opponents of the use of nuclear weapons.

Many people today climb the corporate ladder while being profesionally uninterrupted in their careers. While the society as a whole and their dependents and acquantainces takes pride in them as successful professionals, they merely are replacements of their former bosses. Very little change can be expected in work ethics, the work environment or other social factors involving the work environment in this way. To bring about real change one needs to be unconnected from the corporate world for some time to be able to think out of the box - to think about issues like the distribution (or trickling down) of earnings throughout the company. One also needs to think in the "larger view." More specifically: Where does the work an organisation does fit in the larger scheme of things?