My Learnings and Findings on Humans :)

My god last week was a happy week speaking to my old PG and Tacola friends as they were wishing for my birthday. Many forgot my birthday and few days later they confirmed with me and then wished 😊 Few asked when is my birthday on my birthday and then wished LOL .Anyways, they are the stress busters and make you feel young ( I am aging ☹), and bring out the ME, ten years back.  That day, I was speaking to one of my friend in my room using VAadi podi jargons missing to notice  the presence of my Phd scholars (who are co faculties too) in my room. They are my friends too but still I have dropped using those jargons and felt bit strange. I have become more formal these days in the way of talking except with few set of reliable people. Somehow these days I feel talking less feels better at times ( Again , I  am aging and changing ☹)

Yeah I am aging, changing and  I believe I am  getting matured but one person on earth will never  ever accept this. Selva always thinks that I am immature and treats  both me and our daughter on a same scale. He still thinks people deceive me. Recently, I felt bad when our common PG friends came home and Selva  was telling them that he is not even worried of our daughter but more worried of me and I am not even fit to cross the road.  He was citing one of 10 years old examples of turning my head left and right many times to cross that one-way-road before Anna University  and   he was waiting to pick  up me on the other end.  Adakadavule, he is still ten years back and my aging factor is  completely invisible to him. KAshtam da samy.  But the fact is that I am now ready to handle humans, Its not that I am unaware of ppl deceiving me, I know but I am ignoring their negativity.  If the negativity is ok to accept, I put up with them (You have no other go these days) but when the negativity is  very high, then I stay away to the max! But the good news is that I still   have large set of  people around  who I rely on and  can  talk without that precautioned mind .

I am sorry, I forgot to tell about what this post is about. At least  it striked me  after  typng  two paragraphs 😊. I just wanted to write my observations about humans. Like a Machine Learning Algorithm that trains with many data and during testing it can classify the unknown data,  now I am ready for testing and can judge people as I am aging and have seen many instances of humans. Still Selva wont accept this maturity in me but I am fine with that 😊 This post is about my findings and learnings on/from  Humans.

Let me start  about the nicest part. Let me bring the positive air in.  I believe in the Positive Vibe much, so starting with the brighter side and then I would append the rest.

Disclaimer: These are not pieces of advice and I don't have rights to do so. These are just my learnings and findings that match my way of thinking.  So no misunderstandings, please. Now, please go ahead :)

• ª       People are nice, and they reflect their nicest part better when you be nice to them.
• ª       You make friends with whom your wavelength matches the most despite few  differences.
• ª       Its ok to neglect the negativity of people when they are majorly positive and can’t be hated for that negligible part.
  
  
• ª       You will be surprised to see people whom you missed to notice respects you the most and comes to help when you are in need.
• ª       True friends don’t talk frequently but check with us if we are travelling correctly with or without our knowledge.
• ª       Blessings help and the more you get blessings from the elders, the more it pays back.
• ª       Its better to stick to ground and remain the same which attracts positive people to stay with you for long.
• ª       People who have concern on you does not reveal it by speech but show up through their acts. They see to that you don’t get into trouble and warn you whenever things are going wrong.
• ª       People respect you for your character, the way you treat them, the way you speak to them and they are least bothered about what you wear and how you look.
• ª       Way of Speaking, changing the modulation no matter of what’s boiling inside, changes and lightens the situation and even changes the person in due course of time.
• ª       We can earn respect by not responding to the unwanted conversations and the next conversation becomes purer.
• ª       Its ok to forget and forgive people for their mistakes but the learnings should be remembered as it will help later.
• ª       The more we keep up the calm and can’t be harsh in words, the more we get hurt. People test our patience, sometimes it's ok to tell them what we feel.
• ª       People who are consistent in their behaviours are reliable. It hurts when people change their expressions from  time to time, when we remain the same ☹
• ª       Sometimes we may have to struggle hard to make people  understand and believe  us, but the time comes and they will.
• ª       The Less we have expectations, the more we are going to extend our happiness. Expectation kills. There is no point in expecting.
• ª       Trying to change ourselves is easier than trying to change others.

The list is going  long. I stop here. I feel, people teach you more than any book or philosophies.  The more people you are dealing with, more easier the life would be as every instance of human we meet,  teach you to  handle the rest of their similar instances, good or bad (Sorry for this lengthy sentence . Hope you got it straight !) Accepting their positivity helps us to grow and be happy.

Please take positivity and be happy!

Thanks for reading till the end !

Subalalitha

Teaching - A Deeper View

                                                           

Thought of writing this after getting  done with that book chapter and patent filing tasks that are waiting in the queue in my to-do list. Was confused which one to pick up, book chapter or patent… When the neurons are so confused and dolo 650s are helping you to be alive, and you don’t have the habit of sleeping beyond 5AM, the level of confusion increases and you end up doing nothing. I don’t fret for that, as taking a break will increase my speed and I will surely be done with my to do list! (hoping so 😊) Yeah till now, no match has happened with the title, so will start now.

I feel teaching is getting redefined every day. Sometimes, I doubt if I will be able to teach for another 20 to 25 years. Every semester, I feel changes in many dimensions in terms of, students level of cognizance, many challenges in making students listen to you and many more that I am not able to count now.  And yeah with the increased number of YouTube lectures given by experts, its becoming tough to compete. You have to overlap with that Stanford Professor and deliver content better than him/her  to make students listen to you.

And yeah, the responsibilities of an Engineering student are also redefined. He/She has to take internships from a company, do Online courses, do projects , join Tech clubs and He/She has to listen to your lecture too 😊

On the other side, SRM has already started recruiting faculties having PhD from IITs and IIITs, maintaining the identity has become even more tough.  When I joined SRM there were 96 faculties out of which 16 PhDs were there including me. Today the count has become 50/50 ratio with the total population of 140 I guess. And in 2020 to be an Assistant Professor, PhD is must so it’s no more a pride being a doctorate!  Today you can’t survive if you are not balancing teaching, research and many other additional roles given to you. You have to stay ahead from the crowd or stand in that unique subset.

But the good news is that you can still  face these challenges with the big smile on your face.  Upgrading ourselves to the technology and delivering contents to the students with the updated knowledge, innovative way of thinking will make you feel better amidst all these challenges.  I always remember my roots. Thanks to the exposure given to us by my Anna University gurus, Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathi, Dr.T.V.Geetha and Dr.Madhan Karky. We were made to think, analyse and do our job with responsibility.  I don’t have any fear towards IIT faculties joining every year in SRM as we were exposed to IITs during our tenure as Junior Research Fellow at Anna University while working on the DST project 10 years back. Had I missed joining there I  don’t know what would have happened!.  

I feel a teacher should also be a studious student. My god, you should not visit my room before  the lecture hours. My  PhD scholars  Ms. Anita and Mr. Srinivasan who are also faculties here at SRM also share the NLP lab which is my room with me these days. I took this decision  so that I can pesture them anytime regarding research. I screw them up like anything but still they put up with me with enthusiasm. Should write on them soon 😊 . Yeah coming back to the visiting thing, We all three will be immersed inside the PC or book like anything. If I ask Anitha, what did you have for breakfast, I can only  expect a JAVA related answer as she will have JAVA class the next hour. The positive thing is that I will get the answer after the class is over for sure 😊. I am no exception before my Design and Analysis of Algorithms (DAA) class.

The ground reality is that such a preparation is required to give a contented lecture. I should talk about DAA here. I just loved this one and this time is the first shot for this. Initially it looked like a tough juxta puzzle. I did not like it as it had much of mathematics, time complexities. It was so yucky . I have to do justice as many data structures students (my previous sem students ) sent me messages that they  opted me for this subject believing that I would take that tough subject well. Trust is the strongest component on earth which keeps you going even when you are blind folded. I trust people a lot when it mainly comes to my family and friends. You can’t let go of them for some silly reasons. The same I had to do with DAA. Just because I hate mathematics I cant let go of my students and destroy their trust. The only way to enjoy life is that to love what you hate. That’s what I did . Spent extra hours , early monings meant 5 AM  earlier but  this semester it meant 3 AM most of the times. And yeah it gave a complete feeling. I  hope students too have the same feeling. Recently I confirmed that. We have assignment and quiz components that are part of internal marks. I told them I would give full marks for all. All they need to do is that to add value to the scores given to them   by doing some good projects thereby adding value to themselves. The idea behind is to kick start their responsibilities towards getting placed in a good company which is only possible when they have a good profile.  Yesterday, I sent my drive link to submit their project reports and screen shots and I was happy to see many students adding value to themselves despite the promise of full mark given to them.   I just don’t believe in being strict or compelling them. And yeah it does not work with the current generation teens. They feel happy when they are respected. And yeah, they are truly professional and they expect only a good teaching from you!

Hoping to emerge as a good teacher and change to the frequently changing system and feel satisfied even on my last day of work 😊

Thanks for reading till the end 😊

Subalalitha