An Aimless Wanderer

So many dark allies
So many dead ends
Ways around and above
All roads leading nowhere
But the same place
Returning where I started
Crossing roads
Going backwards
Going forwards
Doubting the end of it all
Finding no redemption for my soul
Stomping on my footsteps again
Repeating the same lame scene
Shouldering countless years of repression
Following that stupid trace of humanity
There is still in me

I am - an Aimless Wanderer  - Gustavo Lucas Luna

My Best Shots - Banaras

Looking Within

There are times when I want solace - solace from life, from relationships, from mundane affairs of life. There are times when I want to go back to my mother's lap and curl like a new born who just needs her care and warmth....when I want to be like a baby and forget the world, but I cannot as I am no more an infant. The best way to find solace is to - "Look Within".

Now what do I mean by 'looking within' ? Looking within could mean looking for the answers which one constantly seeks from oneself. It could be a reflection of various events which have happened in the past or which happen in life. It might mean 'looking for some state of consciousness'. It could also mean an attainment of spiritual bliss or harmony between ones mind and heart. Your inner self is a vast ocean and there are treasures which a person seeks.

As far as I am concerned, it is creating an awareness about oneself. I believe that there is a world out there...deep inside, within oneself (as much as there is a world outside) that comes alive with thoughts and experiences whenever you care to spend time and listen to it. When one seeks this inner world, one gains the joy of knowing things that are inexplicable and one tends to attain clarity from within.

Don't give somebody your mind, give them your heart - Christopher Lowman

A great article written by Christopher Lowman. Read it to understand what it takes to interact :)

In every interaction you have with another human being - doesn’t matter who - you always have two main choices. (The keyword is choice.)

One choice usually leads to logical interaction, politeness, formalities. And, more importantly, a lack of connectivity.The other usually leads to interesting discussion, love, aliveness, friendship, gift giving. And connectivity.

In every interaction you are either giving somebody else your mind - your intellect, your intelligent points, the who/what/where/when/why of your existence.This is the easy thing to do. The safe thing to do. It doesn’t require much, if any, emotional strength or really expose who you are. In this way, you can hide from other (or from your self, depending on how you look at it) and not risk rejection by not even giving somebody the chance to reject you.

Or, you are giving somebody your heart - the real you, your presence, your true attention.This is the hard thing to do. The risky thing to do. It involves an enormous amount of emotional strength.It entails entering the present moment. And it entails pushing through the challenging and stifling fear of doing so.Instead of thinking about what to say or do, you let your inwardly felt experience inform your words and actions toward other.

Think about how often you self censor and hit the mute button. Why? Why not just assume that what you have to say is valuable, even if it comes out not so smooth? Then maybe you say next, “oh, that was lame” and then laugh.

It’s this kind of moment-to-moment truthfulness that is required.It’s so easy to practice because you always know what to say or do in any interaction with somebody else. The problem is having the courage to act on it.

Isn’t it time to feel less anxious and less alone and less unfulfilled? It might not be.If it is, it takes practice. Practice being comfortable with being uncomfortable and constantly choosing to flow freely instead of think. Choose wisely.!

Cerebrations

Take chances in life
Tell the truth
Learn to say NO gently and sometimes firmly
Spend your money on the things you love
Get to know someone random
Say I love you to someone in life
Feel the true love
Tell the idiot how he/she hurts you
Scold someone who deserves it
Laugh till your stomach pains
Dance even if you are bad at it
Pose stupidly for photos
Get drunk for a while
Be naughty like a child
Gaze at stars in the night
Sit alone, watch the rain and cry
See the tides in the ocean all alone on the shore
Listen to the silence - it has much to say
Go on a long vacation
Tell your family and friends you need them
Help a blind man/woman cross the road
Do things which you are scared of
Watch a child grow
Help someone to study
Forgive someone today
Keep conversations going even if they are futile
Listen to someone in need
Be bold enough to accept the defeat
Stand for what you think is right
Don't allow people to underestimate you
Stop blaming people
Learn from your mistakes
Give a smile to someone today
Clean you locality
Go to an orphanage
Give someone hug when they need it and make sure you get many too
Question the existence of life

Live, Love and Laugh for all the pleasure and pain in life!



Forever Friends - From Alka's Kitty

I'll listen to your past in the dead of night

I'll stay with you until it gets light
I'll hold your hands while you face your nightmares
I'll be the one who will always care
Forever I'll be your friend.

I'll stay with you until the end
I'm always here, I'll help you fly
I'd fight for you until I die
For my death is better than seeing you cry
Forever will I stay your friend.

For every heartbreak, I'll be there to mend
I'm your helping hand and forever I'll be at your side
With me you would never wonder if I cheated or lied
But forever I shall remain your friend
Forever and ever until the end.

When I was not Blogging!! (Canon 1000 D)





A Blessing for One Who is Exhausted

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before

Now become labor some events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.

Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The ride you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness takes over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart

And the joy that dwells far within slows time.

Die Slowly - Pablo Neruda

He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience, dies slowly.

He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones “i’s” rather than a bundle of emotions,
the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound
in the face of mistakes and feelings, dies slowly.

He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy,
who is unhappy at work,
who does not risk certainty for uncertainty,
to thus follow a dream,
those who do not forego sound advice
at least once in their lives, die slowly

He who does not travel,
who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself, dies slowly.

He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped,
who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck,
about the rain that never stops, dies slowly.

He or she who abandon a project before starting it,
who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn’t know,
he who don’t reply when they are asked something they do know, die slowly.

Let’s try and avoid death in small doses,
always reminding oneself that being alive
requires an effort by far
greater than the simple fact of breathing.

Only a burning patience will lead to the attainment
of a splendid happiness.

Read more on Pablo Neruda

Ten Requirements Gathering Techniques

The BABoK (Business Analyst Body of Knowledge) lists 10 techniques for gathering requirements. Here’s an overview of each one.
1. Brainstorming
2. Document Analysis
3. Focus Group
4. Interface Analysis
5. Interview
6. Observation
7. Prototyping
8. Requirements Workshop
9. Reverse Engineering
10. Survey

1. Brainstorming : Brainstorming is used in requirements elicitation to get as many ideas as possible from a group of people. Generally used to identify possible solutions to problems, and clarify details of opportunities. Brainstorming casts a wide net, identifying many different possibilities. Prioritization of those possibilities is important to finding the needles in the haystack.

2. Document Analysis : Reviewing the documentation of an existing system can help when creating AS-IS process documents, as well as driving gap analysis for scoping of migration projects. In an ideal world, we would even be reviewing the requirements that drove creation of the existing system – a starting point for documenting current requirements. Nuggets of information are often buried in existing documents that help us ask questions as part of validating requirement completeness.

3. Focus Group : A focus group is a gathering of people who are representative of the users or customers of a product to get feedback. The feedback can be gathered about needs / opportunities / problems to identify requirements, or can be gathered to validate and refine already elicited requirements. This form of market research is distinct from brainstorming in that it is a managed process with specific participants. There is danger in “following the crowd”, and some people believe focus groups are at best ineffective. One risk is that we end up with the lowest common denominator features.

4. Interface Analysis : Interfaces for a software product can be human or machine. Integration with external systems and devices is just another interface. User centric design approaches are very effective at making sure that we create usable software. Interface analysis – reviewing the touch points with other external systems – is important to make sure we don’t overlook requirements that aren’t immediately visible to users.

5. Interview : Interviews of stakeholders and users are critical to creating the great software. Without understanding the goals and expectations of the users and stakeholders, we are very unlikely to satisfy them. We also have to recognize the perspective of each interviewee, so that we can properly weigh and address their inputs. Like a great reporter, listening is the skill that helps a great analyst to get more value from an interview than an average analyst.

6. Observation : The study of users in their natural habitats is what observation is about. By observing users, an analyst can identify a process flow, awkward steps, pain points and opportunities for improvement. Observation can be passive or active (asking questions while observing). Passive observation is better for getting feedback on a prototype (to refine requirements), where active observation is more effective at getting an understanding of an existing business process. Either approach can be used to uncover implicit requirements that otherwise might go overlooked.

7. Prototyping : Prototypes can be very effective at gathering feedback. Low fidelity prototypes can be used as an active listening tool. Often, when people can not articulate a particular need in the abstract, they can quickly assess if a design approach would address the need. Prototypes are most efficiently done with quick sketches of interfaces and storyboards. Prototypes are even being used as the “official requirements” in some situations.

8. Requirements Workshop: More commonly known as a joint application design (JAD) session, workshops can be very effective for gathering requirements. More structured than a brainstorming session, involved parties collaborate to document requirements. One way to capture the collaboration is with creation of domain-model artifacts (like static diagrams, activity diagrams). A workshop will be more effective with two analysts than with one, where a facilitator and a scribe work together.

9. Reverse Engineering : Is this a starting point or a last resort? When a migration project does not have access to sufficient documentation of the existing system, reverse engineering will identify what the system does. It will not identify what the system should do, and will not identify when the system does the wrong thing.

10. Survey : When collecting information from many people – too many to interview with budget and time constraints – a survey or questionnaire can be used. The survey can force users to select from choices, rate something (“Agree Strongly, Agree…”), or have open ended questions allowing free-form responses. Survey design is hard – questions can bias the respondents. Don’t assume that you can create a survey on your own, and get meaningful insight from the results. I would expect that a well designed survey would provide qualitative guidance for characterizing the market. It should not be used for prioritization of features or requirements.

Source : By Scott Sehlhorst

Drippiness

The road doesn’t seem to end at all. It seems to be full of obstacles. I am moving ahead and further more. Sometimes the road seems to be like LIFE. One keeps moving and is totally caught unaware of accidents likewise life.

As one keeps moving one meets people- spend moments and bundles of joy, grief with them and later call it a day off. I somehow don’t want to trust this fallacy but that is the reality somehow - you meet, you greet and later call it a day off. How brutal and how unfortunate can be this be!

The Best Ever Bday Gift :)

23rd May, 2011

Keeping friends - From Paulo Coelho's Blog

When she was eleven years old, Anita went to her mother to complain.

“I can’t manage to have friends. They all stay away from me.”

Her mother was taking care of newly-born chickens and Anita held up one of them, which immediately tried to escape.The more the girl squeezed it in her hands, the more the chicken struggled.

Her mother said: “try holding it gently.”Anita obeyed her. She opened her hands and the chicken stopped struggling.She began to stroke it and the chicken cuddled up between her fingers.

“Human beings are like that too,” said her mother. “If you want to hold onto them by any means, they escape. But if you are kind to them, they will remain for ever by your side.”

Ordinary People

Walking on the road, you pass so many people.Some look confident, purposeful, well-dressed, and well-maintained. But the majority appear so ordinary, wear ill-fitting clothes, unfashionable footwear, have too much fat or too little, nothing remarkable about them, nothing attractive.

But yet someone somewhere eagerly waits for this unimpressive man to come home every evening.
Some one's entire world turns around the strength of this frail-looking woman.
Some one's very purpose in life hinges on this brash youngster cutting through traffic.
Someone knows only the shelter of these old arms each time their world begins to crumble.
Someone will count hours, minutes, and weep like a child when this pock-marked face alights from a long-distance train.
Someone will cave in, crack up, and never be the same again if this one person disappears from the face of the world.

There are no ordinary people...