Suddenly i feel like a traveller......

Over last few months i have been to lot of places, may be more places than i have been in last few years. Went to Brazil, Thailand, Sikkim, Manali, Delhi, Chardam Yatra, Gulti Meet at Hyderabad, Trek to Kudremukh, Trek to Shingani Gudda and don't know what lined up for rest of the year. There are lot of things i have experienced/learned during all these travel, may it be the bliss of Himalayas, the beaches of Brazil, Snorkeling in Thailand waters, greenery of North Karnataka, Seeing my parents playing with ice at Rotang Pass, Spending time plucking leeches during the Shingani Gudda Trek, Amazing view of Kudhremukh, Mafia mania in Sikkim, Joyful get-together with Gulties.
1. Trek to Kudhremukh
Aravind and me decided to go for a trek, and found this trek organized by BMC. Almost everyone ditched us by the time of the trek, so we have finally started our adventure. The travel was ok, as i don't get sleep generally when i travel in van, spent time all night listening to songs. By morning we reached the some place, have breakfast, started to base camp. and it had been the most memorable treks of my life. A complete description of the trek can be found here



2. Pattaya, Snorkeling in the Thailand water
This is Google Bangalore Offsite, Almost whole office headed to Thailand for a break for a weekend. Due to some riots at the time we have landed at Bangkok, first day of the trip tunned into boring shopping, but by evening the fun started with our visit to "Nong Nooch Village", where we witnessed 'Thai Cultural Show', 30 minutes of jaw dropping stunts by Elephants. Then we headed to the hotel, went to beach for walk, but found it completely empty, we headed to enjoy the night life at Thailand. On the second day i went for snorkeling, after floating on the top of beautiful coral for 3 hrs, made me think of them whenever i close my eyes for the next few days. Some of my colleagues had done scuba diving at the same, i have to satisfy with snorkeling as i need to know swimming for scuba diving. In the evening of that i have roamed the streets of pattaya alone, doing/buying what ever i feel like. Bought a tee shirt, wallet,went for fish pedicure, foot massage and full body massage. One thing i want to mention is that i somehow won't able to express/do things i wish, when people i know are around, so going alone i made me so happy as did what i felt in my mind for the whole evening. On third day we went for "Flight of Gibbon", and during the return some drama happened, some items/money lost in the bus, we suspected the driver, went to police station there, filed a case, and finally there ends our 'Annual Google Offsite 2010'.

More adventures coming shortly.

Change in my attitude towards life....

I think i have used more wrong words in my previous post which had transformed it into a hot news in my social circle, may be i should have used 'attitude' instead of 'phase', but the fact is that there had been a change in the way i look at things, . Let me explain it, i have born with a silver spoon and i never had to think about my life, which choice to make, what college i should join, what career to choose, and so on (I have my parents and my brothers to guide me in the best possible direction with their experience). All i need to do is choose from the options that had been shortlisted for me. This was one of the reasons i struggled a lot to decide on any option that comes along in the way of my life lately, and started accepting things as they come. I am the most luckiest one i can ever think of, whatever i chose will end up as the best option for me. This is good but if completely stop thinking, and just continue accepting things it will turn out be bad, as one day will come when i will wake up in a pool of choices and i have to choose one and i am stuck, confused and frustrated. Luckily i have realized it before the eventual day has arrived.

I started to think about my life goals, ambitions etc, during last september when i am planing to app for higher studies. We used to have brainstorming sessions in our room on this topic every now and then, even though i have never reached any conclusion, rather every session will leave me more confused, i have realized that i have taken my first step to think of what i what in my life. One of my broader goal in my life is to serve the humanity, at first i am very unclear of how i am going to do any good to the community being a Software Professional, i thought of contributing towards charity, donations, sponsoring education for some poor children etc. But at the same time i want my contributions to be 100% utilized. Then i felt what i am doing has too little impact, but i have settled on this for now.

Over last few months, i have realized i am already contributing to the community(to a small extent though) by being at google, and working on the success of its great products. Hmm my search quality tweaking helped in improving the search, and hence letting people to find the information they want faster, but what about Orkut? Everything can be argued in both ways, for any social network there will be features that are meant to help community, but all it boils down to one point, given a feature x, how many people are really getting benefit from it and how many people use it a mere tool of time pass and madness. Its very subjective to argue on this, so i am leaving this at this point.

So conclusion of this post is that i am really started thinking of my life now, and instead of accepting things, i am doing what i feel that will help me realizing my dreams, this indeed helped to be more clear on what i want to do, that reduced the gap between my wishes and actions making me lot more happier every moment of my life.

Quick Sumary of what happened in life till last few weeks....

Moved to orkut team, the team is amazingly helpful, funny, dedicated and so on. Had started on with few starter projects, has been involved in launching of New UI on Orkut, SlideShow, Chrome Extension so on. Few big things happened were

• Went to Sri Lanka for an offsite.
  
• Got promoted in November.
• Celebrated new year with parents
• Great birthday celebration (First time ever my dad call me at midnight and gave his blessings)
  
• Went on a trek to Kudremukh National Park

And the life has reached this very special phase, the phase i have been dying for. Will share it very soon, until then you can keep guessing what it is!! Good night for now.