The Priceless Red Liquid

Many a time, on Twitter, I’ve retweeted (RT-ed) that someone needs a specific group of blood in a particular city/hospital. While I am not aware of the difference, if any, that tweet might have made, it still gives me a hope that there’s someone somewhere donating blood to that patient. The fear of needles, thanks to a 4-day stint at a hospital as a teenager with non-stop drips, had prevented me from having thoughts of donating blood. Okay, you’re allowed to laugh if you want to. The (heartless) teenager that I was in college would ignore requests for blood donation at the hospital adjoining my engineering college.

During grad school at ASU, I’d regularly notice a United Blood Services truck on campus, seeking blood donation. Once, gathering some courage, I went to the volunteers only to be informed that I was ineligible to donate as an international student.

The move to the new city for a position at the hospital exposed me to frequent blood donation camps. The fear of needles still continued to haunt me. They haunted me to the extent that I refused to take a mandatory flu shot, till I was informed of dire consequences. (Okay, laugh some more!)

Yesterday, the American Red Cross was in the hospital for a blood donation camp. An enthusiastic me (I don’t know where he came from) inquired about the prospect of donating, and I was eligible to donate this time. Certain impulsive decisions never go wrong. This was such an instance. Barring the slight pain associated with the prick of a relatively large needle to draw blood, this is something I’d recommend everyone to experience in life. I am not too sure if I will continue donating regularly. But the thought of the donated blood being used to help a person, or even give him/her a new lease of life, makes me want to do so regularly. I hope I keep up with it.

And that said, too much of Greys Anatomy did no harm to anyone. I am sure @aishu_s will agree with that. :-)

Image Courtesy: http://www.yale.edu/redcross/img/blood%20drop.jpg

2011 - In a nutshell

To keep up with the 2 year tradition, here's my 2011 in a nutshell.

Professionally

• Successfully defended my dissertation and got my PhD. A sentiment speech has to be given no? 'This was my family’s dream (and mine too, okay), and I am glad that blah blah blah...'. (And not too sure how I feel about it still, even after 5+ months.)
• The Teaching Excellence Award finally, after being nominated for the third time. I’d almost resigned my fate to that of Meryl Streep’s.
• A paper in this prestigious journal, something that I should have had 2-3 years ago. Better late than never.

Personally

• Had to say goodbye to my pseudo thai-mann (motherland -  word courtesy @palavertalk) Tempe after 6 years of stay there. Miss the food, some of the people, and the heat!
• Got ATL-ed (word courtesy @krtgrphr), and am not too sure if I like it here, yet!
• Not having stayed in the same city as relatives/family thus far, I learnt staying in such a city is not hard after all (and is surely helpful too!)
• Learnt it the hard way that people aren’t required to survive/keep myself occupied in a new city. It’s only ‘me’ that’s required.
• Surprised myself with a 2 month Twitter break. 
• Also, got back onto Facebook after a 14 month break, and I think I am done with that form of social networking. (I think I should write a post about it soon.)
• Realized the 42-inch TV is my 42, for now. (My dream for a long time, ala Asin’s ambassador car dream in Ghajini.)

PS: I am alive to see my blogs slip into coma and have a near-death experience. Blame it on my over-indulgence in TV shows. And the thought that I lacked thoughts to blog about. I still think so!

PPS: I was to write something in a nutshell. Apologies for making it a coconut shell.

World Cup and my Sleep-vaas

There have surely many many posts about the Cricket World Cup 2011 in the desi Blogosphere. Capturing the attention of cricket fans nationwide and worldwide for more than a month, the biggest match happened today. India played Pakistan in the semifinal today at Mohali. Being a jinx factor, I chose to sleep all through this match, as with the previous matches that India played (except for the India-Ireland match, which I thought India would surely win, but the bad fielding by our team was exposed then too!). And I surely didn’t want to incur the wrath of a few folks on Twitter.

Here’s some of the Twitter junta’s reaction on this self-imposed/forced sleep-vaas:


And I wake to the news that India won against our (so-called) arch-rivals to meet Srilanka in the World cup final. With the cliched ‘It doesn’t get bigger than this!’ pre-match hype to ‘This was surely fixed’ post-match analysis all over Twitter (and probably Facebook), this match surely caught everyone’s attention. And a cliched answer to this, ‘In the end, cricket is the winner!’

Well, here’s hoping that Dhoni’s men bring home the cup for ‘Him’! Thank you God, I will assure you that I will sleep through the final too!

Update: I might end up watching the final on the big screen. Don't spit on me.
I followed the ritual of my sleep-vaas during the final too. And look what happened! :-) 
 

The 140 Characters on My Timeline

As I mentioned in this post, I sure have spent a good part of my 2010 on Twitter. What began as yet another form of social media for status-updates, soon became a discussion forum with likeminded folks. Discussions about life in general, music, technology, food/cookery, movies, and many more have taken place on Twitter with complete strangers. And it might be an understatement if I say that I can relate more to the people of Twitter than with a few of my so-called ‘fraands’. As the year draws to a close, I must mention the people from Twitter who’ve been a source of entertainment, information, witty remarks, and more.

Statutory Warning: This is a long post with 140 characters! Pliss to take it seriously in lighter vein in most cases. And this list is in the order that I followed people, no favoritism was shown (I wish I could!)

If you are looking for a mention of your Twitter handle, Ctrl + F maybe a better option to find it. And I would really like to hear your curses in the comments.

(For non-Twitter folks, if any, TL = Timeline, DP = Display picture, and this post must be a good reason for you to join Twitter.)

1.    Thripthi – Got introduced to Twitter by her, but the lady hardly tweets.

2.    krtgrphr – A lot has been said about this all-in-all Azhaguraaja; knowledgeable and well-informed about everything, this hat guy is.

3.    Axe_Puli – Someone who has an opinion contrary to the popular one, with a reason. Has the uncanny ability to spam your timeline with live-tweets about any game that’s going on. And daily Earthquake update specialist.

4.    arvindia4u – Photographer and a regular on all social networks (Was The Social Network made targeting him?)

5.    Chinmayi – Beyond a good singer/translator/voice-over artist and all that, she may make a good politician one fine day, at least on Twitter.

6.    Hariship – Has had the most tweets about sipping tea in Starbucks on a timeline. A true tea lover, he is.

7.    Prajnyan – Tech-geek and fellow Bangalorean who has an interesting take on life

8.    D33pak – A TL popular who’s on a sabbatical now

9.    Ursmusically – The best analysis of a movies background score, you can get, in simple words.

10.    Sujdr – Radio-oncologist in the making and a childhood fraand, had some interesting thoughts about the medical profession.

11.    Aswinms – Made sure that I blog about Ram Guha’s talk (made sure in a good way!)

12.    BenTex – Fellow pardesi, who has a good taste in movies, and is not ashamed of a few movie that she calls as her favorites.

13.    Sridhar – A BlackBerry Fan, who is my first stop for news about any new phone.

14.    Venkatananth – Omnipresent on your timeline, with news, tit-bits, analysis, and more. A must follow.

15.    Brijeshnairan – Expressive blogger

16.    Kiranp – One of the authorities for Ilayaraja music.

17.    Purnateja – Nammooru huduga, whose culinary ventures are the highlight of his stay in the Pardes.

18.    R_Khanna – His tweets are a good explanation for why this guy didn’t get to act more, in a good sense.

19.    Krishashok – Jalsa, Jilpa and all that… it’s only him who can make an airport layover sound interesting. And not just that!

20.    Lavsmohan - #MokkaMondays is her proprietary service to Twitter. And this service is available on all days.

21.    IndiaFiles – An amazing photographer who blogs about the small and often-missed things in life.

22.    SudhishKamath – I’ve agreed to his movie reviews to a record 95% this year, and a fellow LOSTie. Looking forward to his Good Morning, Good Night

23.    Shilparathnam – Sigh! One only wishes some more girls were made this way!

24.    FlyYouFools – Cows on Indian roads! Period. PS: He must have more comics.

25.    _Avni – Another Blackberry lover, and tweets motivational stuff (yes, the timeline does need it occasionally)

26.    anishasharma10 – Calls a spade a spade, and my source of news from London.

27.    beholder20 – Bangalore se gaya London, and now has become a good London-vaasi ☺

28.    bigfatphoenix – Video games… hmm… I am plain jealous of this guy for his life.

29.    SahilRiz – Has those stick figure reviews that are often more entertaining than the movie itself. If only I had listened to him, I’d have saved a few hundred dollars in movie tickets this year. 

30.    Neo_indian – Why hasn’t #TweetLikeNeoIndian trended yet. 140 characters are too little to express and here’s someone who expresses in half as much.

31.    Mokkai_mak – Chennai guy (??) who’s transforming into a great Mumbaikar.

32.    Chuck_gopal – Seasonal DPs and more.

33.    Fakingnews – Newspersons who are fond of breaking the news can never compete with him, well at least not after the ‘Man sues Axe Bodyspray, as unable to get girl’ episode.

34.    IntrepidShaz – School friend who constantly reminds me the things I am missing out in India, in general and Bangalore, in particular.

35.    Mojorojo – Another LOSTie who instantly made me jealous by showcasing his Lost Blu-Ray set. And did I say he was a standup comedian.

36.    Techrsr – One more all-in-all Azhaguraaja on my timeline. And immense respect for his knowledge of carnatic music (even though he says there are experts around.)

37.    Cowmaaa – If there is one person from my TL whom I want to meet, it’s him. Interesting stands on various topics, and I mostly disagree with him, though he can get convincing in most cases.

38.    Sruthirk – Makes guest appearances on the timeline often, mostly when a music discussion or mokkai discussion is taking place.

39.    _smylee – The only one in my TL from down under, with whom I have a 24hr gap (thanks to my sleep cycle), and a young lady who has trained her significant other very well! ☺

40.    gpwill – Occasionally tweets about some corporate stuff  which have a OHT on me

41.    bharadhwaj – A CS PhD student in completeness

42.    imsaiarasi – Now a total #youremember, who had the knack of setting the TL on fire when she was around.

43.    Vettipaiyan – Once a competition to me in terms of vetti-thanam (joblessness), now a busy guy; and tweets some carnatic gems occasionally.

44.    udupendra – I wait for his Top 5 lists, and the Kannada gems that he tweets occasionally. And an awesome quizzer and a smart MBA.

45.    hg6 – Another musically expressive blogger.

46.    Sathm – Family guy in the pardes, and in the happening city of Vegas; manages to make me read Tamil regularly via his tweets.

47.    vettyponnu – A regular #youremember, whose presence on the TL is sorely missed.

48.    panjamirtham – Another US timezone regular, whose DP itself is a good reason why I follow; the female equivalent of all-in-all azhaguraja… oops azhagurani; proprietory owner of #ARRTrip

49.    Saranya_s – She knows to put Samosas/Kachori on the timeline at the right time, and motivate me to indulge in chaat.

50.    prempanicker – Immense respect for him and his writing, enough said.

51.    nilotpalc – The sports fanatic on my TL, who has every cricket statistic at his fingertips.

52.    Suppandi – The most-loved comic character, in a smart new avatar.

53.    Sumantics – Followed her for the Mosaranna (curd rice) DP, but there’s more to this lady than that. The only other Deecan Herald loyalist on my timeline, I suppose.

54.    Surekhapillai – Shows how ‘exciting’ a profession PR can be, and more; will she take offense if I call her the Kovai Sarala of the TL?

55.    Amreekandesi – Provides a good precursor of what to expect after moving back to Des.

56.    Mekkadan – College friend who is probably one of the few serious tweeps on my TL

57.    Sruthih – A mute spectator and an occasional RT-er

58.    Svinz – Founder of the Kannada Twitter Sangha (reminds me of Vatal, just kidding)

59.    Milliblog – 100 word reviews of Indian music and more, and the monthly picks usually tell me of the good music I might have missed during that month.

60.    Navyad2005 – Another Raaja fan on my timeline, who tweets about a few other things that are blogworthy.

61.    Connectvinoth – At times shows, self-motivation is the best form of motivation.

62.    Raj2s – What to say, a popular guy from nammooru who manages to make me get the Bangalore feel on Twitter.

63.    Ashvala – While he says he’s often called #kidsthesedays, I’d change it to #SmartKidsTheseDays; gives me a complex for wasting my school days :P

64.    ShreyanshS – Mumbai. Cricket. Bollywood. Life. This guys tweets about them all.

65.    CreativeWolf – Began following him cos he is a Tamil pulavar; now a fellow Bangalorean and music lover.

66.    Vasa_ - One more Bangalore guy who has disappeared from my TL for a while.

67.    Neelavanam – Artwiculate is the word to describe her tweets, and wait, she’s @Ashvala’s mom.

68.    Ainvvy – Quite like some of his remarks on certain things, and he’s @Ashvala’s dad.

69.    Nakulshenoy – A mindreader who manages to get me to rethink what I tweet to him.

70.    Rajeshmedic – Keyboard player with gifted fingers. His version of Anbil Avan showed me heaven instantly.

71.    Rameshsrivats -  ‘If you are not following him, you ought not stay on Twitter’ is an understatement.

72.    Mspraveen – Truly appreciate his effort for Wikipedia, some really good wikis, and on some movies too.

73.    Pooja_luvIndia – One question. How does she manage to get up at 2am to study? I can only target waking up at 2pm.

74.    DilsoftRaja – Another Raaja fan on the timeline

75.    Andytitmoves – His knowledge of Tamil music tends to amaze me. And did I say he was an IITian?

76.    Thecomicproject – I am fan of his pictures, and his comics too; and the pics not just because he is in Amsterdam.

77.    _logik – Packs some logic in the 140 characters, a quizzer and more often Bangalore-related trivia that cause much jealousy.

78.    Gulpanag – She better get the Bollywood Ambassador on Twitter award, wait, actually nope, she sure is beyond #TweetLikeABollywoodMoron

79.    Kweezzz – Made sure I wake up on time for a few quizzes. On a serious note, an excellent initiative.

80.    aishu_s – Fellow Rahmania blogger, iPod Rani, and my source for English music.

81.    livetimefe – If only I could say out everything that’s on my mind, like this not-at-all reticent young lady; she’s a complete #WIN on the TL

82.    beastoftraal – I truly admire his daily blog routine, and he often posts PR stuff that make sense to a layman like me.

83.    _sukhi – A fellow Udaan and Amit Trivedi fan, and keeps posting about the Orange city.

84.    Hallidude – Gets the award for the most misleading handle on Twitter.

85.    Srikanthgv – One more Bangalore-related jealousy breeder :P

86.    AbsolutDiamond – Where to begin? Raaja fanatic, doc is one description. Can I call her a vaayadi?

87.    Itsdemo – MBA aspirant and regularly plugs some ‘Hindu’ articles which I might have missed, and some good Tamil music too.

88.    Kabodhi – A guy with such an inspiring handle should tweet more, seriously!

89.    Madraslover – A lover of a city that he doesn’t stay in, and puts thanni on behalf of me and @saranya_s too.

90.    Tricalnikhil – Complete techie, what more can I say.

91.    Nandiniv – A wonderful motivator who makes me cook/bake, and shows enough passion to get back to des (the last time I heard, it was 6 months, 4 days, 22 hrs and 5 mins or so).

92.    Penn_insula – Someone who was to quit Twitter, but got back because Echofon remembered her password. We need more such Tweeps.

93.    Wittophile – A fellow Raaja/ARR fan, who has gone missing from the timeline off-late, and used to have some interesting (read as ‘weird’) tweets :P

94.    Cornerd – Hosts the best ARR/Raaja kweezzz’es (and others too!) in town

95.    dineshjayaraman – Sakalakalavallavan, in his own words; one more guy who gives me a complex for having wasted my college days.

96.    Sujoysingha – a recent follow who has an interesting blog called ‘One Knight Stands’ featuring reviews and the like

97.    Anantha – One word, sorry, one hashtag #WhyAnanthaIsAmazing describes him completely; and I hear @maxdavinci coined it, don’t know why he coined it, but agree completely.

98.    Mah_Ima – the original paavam ponnu, who can sleep through an office conference call, without getting caught, well almost. And a #DPMahipal

99.    Saffrontrail (drnanditaiyer) – One handle encourages food indudgence, while the other provides information on proper food habits (in @krishashok’s own words); this doc is a complete #WIN mother and an amazing culinary expert.


100.    WolframZeta – I won the social experiment against the ultimate answer to anything x = 42, on who changes the DP faster. Gave me an instant egoboost :P

101.    GeekyInaneTwit – Took a while for me to figure out what her DP was, and I take time to figure out her tweets too.

102.    Ajit_baskar – The other half of @nandiniv and now a #youremember

103.    NameFieldEmpty – One more person who gives me a complex with the way she tweets; I surely want to know how she is in person.

104.    MehaMaya – The Matarani Ka Prakop, who’s a regular on the US timezones, and a great baker whose preparations make me go hungry right after a meal.

105.    Naresha – The raw mango DP is enough to make me drool at my timeline; another scientist in the making, I suppose. And a Ranji lover.

106.    l__m – the one and only goddess on my TL,  who’s a serial DP changer, and currently witnessing the ‘chillarathanam’ of a few of the potential future big shots of Fortune-500 kombenis.

107.    mad_nad – This post was inspired by her post (so all rights reserved with Nadhiya); another late follow actually, but a great cricket fact wizard. And I have promised to her that I will not follow a cricket match, till India is at the victory stage.

108.    Gradwolf – Rechristened #matterwolf, I am yet to see his leelais. And has a nice blog too!

109.    UnnamedEntity – A recent much delayed follow, who’s best known as the person who pWns kweezzzes. And another knowledgeable guy on my TL.

110.    Benly – Fellow Rahmaniac with a very interesting DP, amazed by his fandom.

111.    Krish_santhosh - #EngagedMahipal in the Gelf

112.    Sunilification – One guy who doesn’t hesitate to give out his opinion, and I disagree (actually agree) with him, most often than not :P

113.    Imsabbah – Haven’t interacted with her much, but tweets some interesting stuff from the Jammu & Kashmir valley.

114.    YaavanoObba – How do people come up with such handles? I am jealous.

115.    NYSubha – One of the few people, who isn’t ashamed to admit that her husband taught her to cook, while she struggled to boil water. Okay, last bit was an exaggeration.

116.    Pradyutroy – Another Rahmaniac/blogger who manages to crib as much as me, if not beat me :P

117.    EnnaipolEvan – Immense respect for this guy for the pWnzer Rahman quiz he hosted, I began doubting my listening skills.

118.    Atlasdanced – Someone who followed me just because I refered to him and someone else collectively as ‘Pasangala’. Having said that, I still don’t know his age.

119.    Shrihari – One source for Tamil music, and a good Tamil film music quizmaster

120.    Aajays – Had an interesting DP, now an even more interesting one.

121.    Complicateur – Is he the 24th Pulikesi? You never know, but all said, writes really well.

122.    Equanimus – He’s almost my Tamil tutor on my TL; unintentionally though!

123.    Blogeswari – One of my favorite bloggers, who has done a re-name-akaranam to most people in the showbiz.

124.    Pushkarr – The new entertainer on my TL, and succeeds in most cases. And had a #EPIC #youremember quiz about the Indian brands. Much nostalgia happened then.

125.    Maxdavinci - #marriedmahipal who says he still doesn’t support romance or something like that. And it sure takes some guts to say it.

126.    Nandini_Iyer – An entertainer from England, who shares the ‘same kuttai same mattai’ sentiment with me.

127.    Phulkadots – My new source for discovering Tamil music

128.    Nelsonnium – The new #abstracttweet person on my timeline

129.    Punvati – Recent tweep, but sure puts the pun in punch too, apart from putting it into many other things.

130.    Raghu_Dixit – Kudos to this guy for putting Kannada folk music on the National level and more. Hope to see more from you in 2011


Other notable mentions
131.    BDUTT – Still respect her and all that. Noted her response during the #barkhagate fiasco. If only she came clean on what happened.

132.    Chetan_Bhagat – Move away from #ChetanBlocks, one surely must have the guts to make a fool of himself on Twitter, unless it’s unintentional.

133.    SrBachchan – a love-hate relationship with this guy and his tweets. Can’t live without it.

134.    Mangeshkarlata – For once her music doesn’t do the screeching.. oops talking, but the shuddh Hindi does. ‘Humility’, I guess.

135.    BlogAdda – Solely deserves the award for making me get back to blogging, and how! They gave be an award for one of my blogs ☺

136.    RajaSen – I hardly agree with his reviews, but this guy sure has something in his writing that makes me go back to his reviews every Friday.

137.    RajeevMasand – I don’t agree with all his reviews either, but all said, one of the trusted reviewers around. And he tweets at times about older movies and analyses them.

138.    PritishNandy – I still wonder what would have happened if a guy with such thoughts, made it big in politics.

139.    Mashable – News about anything and everything related to technology and social media

140.    ShashiTharoor – And the cattle class comment, enough said!

Phew!!!

Missing people:

141. Sushovande - HP quizzes and tech-related tweets. One TL non-spammer he sure is.

2010 - In a Nutshell

-       A memorable year, a year that I’d want to relive

-       A year that almost showed me the light at the end of the tunnel in my research,

-       Also, finally showed me the way the tunnel called professional life, and I hope to traverse the path and reach the destination soon.

-       A year that I saw God; attended one of the concerts in Jai Ho concert tour and witnessed some A.R.Rahman musical magic, in person.

-       Showed me how addicting a gripping TV series can be, and also probably showed why leaving a few things open-ended, is good. And the TV series is Lost. Never before and never again will I be able to see 10 episodes of a TV series back-to-back.

-       Showed me that I can have ‘followers’; I’ve spent a good amount of my 2010 on Twitter, and had a good time conversing with like minded people (a blog post on that coming up)

-       And the year I gave up on my friends, oops Facebook. I am a #youremember on Facebook now.

Social Networking and employers - my posts or my resume??

In an age of social media and networking, it is quite likely that your prospective employers want to know more about the 'Real' you, while they are considering you for a position. While it is understandable that they need to get a responsible person for the position, it is quite unreasonable that they go over your profiles and posts in Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Myspace, Orkut and the like. Going over it in Linkedin, the professional site is understandable, but not the others.

These sites are more a platform to voice out your opinions on current topics and one definitely has freedom of expression and thought. Maybe using unparliamentary language, commenting abusively or posting pictures that ought to be private, is not a ethical thing, but having your own opinion on things is not wrong. Its your personal space and you have the authority to say things out.

If one is going to judge you based on your posts rather than your technical skills and people skills, it is indeed unfortunate. I would not call this kind of networking as a part of social skills (even though it actually is), since it is something that is private and a good line has to be drawn between professional and personal life.

(Thanks to Prathap for initiating this discussion and also to Harish for bearing with me in the discussion :).)