Hardest phase in life

Life can be divided into several stages or phases, childhood, adolescence , young adulthood, adulthood. One can further divide adulthood but since I have not experienced I will not venture there.

Childhood is a stage in life most enjoy, it's carefree life, parents make all the decision for you. You just have to play and have fun. Learning is also made fun by games and other learning related activities.

Thereafter comes the "hardest phase in life" according to most of the people. The adolescent or the teenage years . These are the hormonal fueled years where drastic changes happen to your body. This is the basis upon which many people say that "teenage years are the hardest phase in life". However in this phase of life you are still concentrated on learning, doing exams and still somewhat carefree. You still receive all the attention from your parents there is not a major change in life other than the changes that happen to you with in. Your school years finish in your late teens but at that time you are well adapted changes that happened 5-6 years back.

Let me take you back 65 million years. At that time, it was the dinosaurs that ruled the earth. These are huge reptile like mammals who were thriving in volcanic atmospheric conditions. But dinosaurs disappeared from face of the earth following a gigantic asteroid collision. As a result of this there was massive changes in the atmospheric conditions and it was believed that because the dinosaurs could adapt to these changes that they faced extinction. This is a very similar belief like I mentioned above. But later scientists found out that they did adapt to the changes but it was earth changing back to its original state that made the dinosaurs extinct.

As you can see life can adapt to change, but if more than one major change occur in relatively small period of time, adapting becomes even harder. Therefore I believe that it is not the teenage years but young adult phase that is the hardest in life. I will prove it to you why.

In young adulthood, ages between 20 - 30 years are the most hardest years in my perspective. This is where the social perimeter changes several times, you enter into several new relationships, and you are still trying to stand on your two feet in life. Early in your young adulthood university life changes your social perimeter. You encounter new people from various social backgrounds, then your primal instinct comes into play and many start relationships with partners all the while trying to study and finding your footing in life. After a relative small amount of time like 4 years, you turn another different chapter in life; work. Again you encounter new people and new a lifestyle. Then you are forced to balance work, love, family and your future aspirations. That is the second major change within 4 years. When you are about to feel comfortable in it, another asteroid collide in your life path; marriage. These major changes in life within a very short periods of time is the killer. That's why I say, young adulthood is the most hardest phase in life.

Hence these are the make it or break it years of life. Conquer these years and your rest of the life will be a bliss. Finding a good job, finding a partner in life, securing your future with further education are the key features of this phase in life. It is the hardest phase in life because you encounter several major changes in life and balancing them. I'm still to conquer this phase of life, as of now almost half of it is gone and great many things to be achieved. Have trouble in concentrating in further studies, but determined to drive ahead and achieve great many challenges in life.

Sri Lankan Postal Service

With the advancement of information technology the need for postal service has been reduced by a great degree. Back in the day, I also used to stay in touch with my friends by post. But now it’s all about email and social networking. However there are at times we rely on the postal service to deliver our post safely and confidentially. Even though technology has developed, still humans haven’t found a way to transport objects through the internet; therefore postal service is still a necessity in delivering goods and letters.

However lately I have lost faith in our Sri Lankan postal service. I have experienced quite a few times that International post doesn't seem to arrive to the recipient correctly. Quite a few others also have experienced these kinds of similar situations.

My brother and sister-in-law reside in USA, and they love to send cards. They never miss a chance to send a birthday card or seasonal greeting cards to all of the family and friends. It is with great joy that they go and select special cards to send to family and friends, however this joy is greatly diminished when they get to learn that the cards that selected with care hasn’t reached the recipient. Recently it was my birthday and my sister-in-law had selected one special birthday card for me, yet I didn’t receive it. However we got cards that they sent a week later wishing seasonal greetings.

I don’t have any proof to say that it got lost after it arrived in Sri Lanka, or it got lost while coming across the great Indian ocean, but it is sad to see that letters filled with love and care just simply join the great big ocean or get trampled to dust by unknown people. This is just one occurrence. We’ve experienced this situation twice earlier, and few times by relatives. Just imagine if we ourselves have experienced this thrice, may be thousands may be millions of letters doesn’t reach the recipient.

What we presume is that people, open letters to see if there is anything valuable is sent with it (especially money). It’s hard to believe that people are still uneducated enough to send money through post. But maybe people do find valuables in letters because this continues to happen.

It’s just greeting cards that we lost. People must be having private and confidential information in letters that they send. May be these letters are intercepted and used for blackmailing. I’m just assuming, but this may be happening. I think it’s time that we raise our voices against this very serious matter.

May be we should be able to enable tracking, like parcel packages sent through courier. Then at least we know whether the letter is and if it is received by the recipient safely and confidentially. It’s time that the Sri Lankan postal service take a serious investigation in to this matter and catch the culprits who commit this serious crime.

Well, please comment below if you have also experienced this situation.

Bus Service in Sri Lanka

Show of hands, please the ones who fancy travelling in the bus? As expected, I can’t see anyone. Why? The answer is pretty darn obvious, because it sucks! Every country in the world tries as much as possible to make public transport the most efficient mode of travelling. Why? Because if a person spends more time travelling to get to their work place, there will be less time for that person to do their job.

Let’s do some simple mathematics to prove this point. Let’s say it takes a person 1 hour to get from point A to point B. When he takes the bus, it takes him 15 minutes more. It’s not only one person that is getting 15 minutes late it’s the whole bus full of people. Assuming there are 50 people in the bus that is 12.5 man hours. And if 1000 people travelling in the same bus route that is 250 man hours. Can you see how much time we are wasting? Think of how much work can we achieve if we can utilize this time?

The image below shows the recommend time allocation per trip on the 154 bus route in Sri Lanka.

For the many years I have travelled in this bus route, it has never made it to bambalapitya in 55 mins. It has taken an average 1 hour 10 minutes. That is on a happy day. If they actually take off the 10 min pit stops at Borella and Dematagoda they can actually make it in this time.

Aside from the long travelling times, the bus is packed to the brim on rush hours. I’m very fortunate to get in when there are empty seats but many of them commuters aren’t that fortunate. I can see a lot of frowning faces when I travel in the evening. It’s very uncomfortable when you are being tossed around like a rag doll from the way that the bus driver is racing against the other and at the same time being shoved around by other nasty commuters.

I’ve noticed that going in SLTB (Sri Lanka Transport Board) buses are quite alright compared to private buses. They don’t usually do 10 minute pit stops at Borella or Dematagoda. It’s travels comparatively faster than the private buses but at rush hours when there is traffic on the road and plenty of people trying to go home, it’s still packed to the brim and doesn’t make much of a difference in time wise either.

Well, the government should do a better job at improving the service quality of the bus transport. That way most of the commuters will prefer travelling in SLTB buses. They should not give the upper hand to the private bus companies; otherwise the bus fares will rise according to the whims and fancies of the private bus owners and not deliver a good bus service to the people.

YouTube Sensation Charice Pempengco as Sunshine Corazon on Glee Season Premiere

Glee is a musical comedy drama TV series and its second season premiere was aired 21^st September 2010. I was anxiously waiting for this after watching all of the episodes of season 1 and I loved every single one of those episodes. Many of the stars of the last season were back to bring an awesome season premiere. What I love most about the show is the songs that they perform. They take the most influential song of all eras into the storyline and make every episode a fun filled one to watch.

Charice Pempengco acts as an exchange student from the Philippines on Glee Season 2 premiere. Before this episode went on air, I’ve never heard of this name or that she is has become a sensation on YouTube. From the first moment that she started singing the song “Telephone” (originally sung by Lady Gaga) I was blown away by her voice. For a person of such a small build she has one powerful vocal chord. And then later on the show, when she sang “Listen” from Dream Girls, which is also not an easy song to sing, I was yet again mesmerized by her voice. I could see she was making such tough songs look easy to sing.

After watching the show I really wanted to know who this is, and when did some searching on the internet I was thrilled to see that she is an upcoming artist who got her big break on the Oprah and on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show “. Watching the two songs that she performed on Ellen DeGeneres Show I was yet again captivated by her singing skills and her performing skills. The two songs “And I am Telling You” from Dream Girls and “I Will Always Love You” By Whitney Houston are two awesome songs and she sang both of those songs magnificently. She has been called on the show after Ellen saw one of her performances on YouTube.

I would love to see her more on Glee and also listen to her upcoming albums.

How I utilize my travel time

In the modern day almost all the people travel long distances to get to their workplace, school, or may be on vacations and so on. Have you ever wondered how much of your time is spent on travelling alone?

Well, in Sri Lanka, travelling even short distances takes a considerable amount of time. For example to get to my workplace by bus it takes around 1 ½ hours and to come back it takes nearly 2 hours. This is merely a 25 km ride. Doing a small calculation I found out that it is approximately 20% of my active day time.

When travelling I see that most of the people just do nothing while they are travelling. This article is about the way I utilize my travel time and if you agree with me you could also do the same or do something better.

So what activities could you do while travelling in the bus, train or even in Aero plane? I don’t travel at all by plane or by train. My usual method of public transport is by bus. And the following are the activities that I do while travelling in the bus.

1. Read a book
2. Sleep
3. Thinking about articles to write on

From what I see, handful of people sleeps, like I do while some listen to music or radio stations on the phone. But I hardly see people reading in the bus.

Sir Francis Bacon once said that “Reading maketh a full man”. In this age of information technology fewer people have an interest in reading. Even I, a software engineer by profession, (just started) am having a very hard time in reading. If I do get my hands on a good novel I can read it without much of a problem. But when it comes to text books and the newspapers it’s not easy to sit and read. But that is something that I should improve on.

When I tell people that I read in the bus, they tell me that it gives them a headache. It is not surprising that people get headaches because the roads in Sri Lanka aren’t the best in the world. Even in the city of Colombo you can find roads with pot holes right in the middle. Therefore it is not surprising people having headaches while reading in the bus. I also do get them from time to time but that doesn’t make me stop reading.

I have heard my mother telling me that in Japan people read newspapers while going in the bus. Since the text is in small columns, what they do is fold the paper as much as they can so that they can read it column wise and also not disturbing the person seated beside. She has also told me that in England, when the harry potter mania was at its peak she has seen people of various ages read it while travelling in the bus.

You might think that how come sleeping in the bus isn’t a waste of time. The profession I do involves in me looking at the monitor screen full 8 hours. And also when I go home most of the time I’m on the computer. This makes your eyes really tired and sleeping that hour in the bus makes a lot of difference. And on top of it when you wake up you feel refreshed. I mostly sleep on the way home, when it is too dark to read. Another thing that people say is what if you miss the stop? Over the years of travelling in the bus I have figured out that people have a sense of where they should wake up even while sleeping. For example, if I happen to fall asleep while going to work, I wake a halt or before the halt that I should get down. The fact that Sri Lankan buses travelling in extremely slow pace may also be one fact that I don’t miss the halt. But on the way home I get down at the bus station there it is perfectly ok to sleep to my heart’s content. But even so, I wake up before it stops at the station.

I should also mention that, some of the most creative ideas come when you travel. There are numerous incidents where people have come up with such ideas. One such incident that I can think of is where J.K. Rowling came up with her life changing idea of “Harry Potter”. It was when she was travelling from Manchester to London on the train (flowrider, 2008). May be you could also come up with an idea worth multi-millions. All you need is a creative mind and time to think. Travelling time is ideal for it.

Taking that into consideration, I also think about that what articles to write from time to time, while travelling. Most of them are just ideas, sometimes I write them but I don’t feel like putting them up for display.

So don’t waste precious travel time chatting nonsense with people, hanging on the phone chatting or staring outside aimlessly. Do something worthwhile.

Another major chapter of life comes to an end

In the wee hours of the 31^st May 2010, I got up because my mind was telling me to wake up. I had set the alarm to 6.30am but when I got up to see it was still 4.30am. If it was a regular day I would have said to myself “Oh! What the hell, I’ll go to sleep again”, but this was no ordinary day. It is day that the second biggest chapter of my life comes to an end.

I was to conduct a presentation about the Final Year Project I have done, and Viva to conclude it. I said to myself, “Why don’t you practice your presentation instead of going sleep like every other day”. That’s how the last day of my B.Sc (Hons) Software Engineering degree started.

After the usual “getting ready” war with my mum in the morning, I was there at IIT by 8am. I was the first to arrive at the lab as usual, and setup my laptop to start practicing my presentation again. My presentation and viva was scheduled at 2.30 in the afternoon so I had plenty of time in my hands to practice.

As the day went by fellow undergraduates trickled into the lab to setup their computers and start practicing their own speeches. Some had it all covered, confident about themselves about making it through this last day. Some were anxious to getting this done and over with. While others were there it see how things go and find out what are the probable questions that they ask so that it’ll assist them when their day of viva comes.

One of my best friends was up first in 4LA lecture hall. I envied him a bit he’d got the better hall to conduct his presentation because it had the better projector, and also for the fact that he is the best bullshitter I know when it comes to presentations. So I stayed in the lecture hall to support him and listen to his great presentation. And as always he pulled out a brilliant presentation. But unfortunately for the rest of the people who was there to listen to the questions that the panel asks, we were chased out of the lecture hall so that they could ask the questions peacefully without any one listening to them.

Well, time went by and it was my time for the presentation. I should say that I was a bit worried, but with my usual stammering for words I finished my presentation without any big drama.

The questions asked in the Viva were a bit tough but I know I handled them well. Thus, concluded my last day of my degree program and coming out of the lab in which the presentation was held I felt relieved and free after a long time. All the months of hard work I put through came to an end and all that I could do now is hope for good marks.

Now, it’s time to face the real life, where you have to go to work to make a living and start a new chapter in life. Honestly though I looking forward for it. There some companies in my mind that would so love to work in. If I can get into one of those I would be very glad.

Thanks for reading this boring update of my life. Well, all the best for your future endeavors.

My Final Year Project Questioner

Hi,

I'm sorry I haven't posted a blog in a quite a while now. Well, now I'm in my final year of my B.Sc Degree in Software Engineering @ IIT which is affiliated with the university of westminster, UK. As for my final year project I have selected to do a project, which will enable the users to identify a lichen by just inserting an image of it on to the software tool. The once the image is processed by the software, the user will be informed about the name of the lichen and some small description about it. It will also have the feature, where users can input data like where the lichen was found and some basic information so that the user can keep track of the lichens that he has identified.

As for the current methods of lichen methods consume a lot of time and effort in identifying a lichen I have thought of automating this process. As at present I'm in the phase where I have to gather user requirements for the project. As there are not many lichenologists here in Sri Lanka, I have already made an online survey. I've already posted this link in a forum called the UBC Botanical Garden and center for plant research where people have started threads where they have posted images of lichens and asking experts in helping them to identify them.

As at now I'm not getting great many responses from it. So I thought of getting your help in this matter.

If you are a lichenologist, a student who is working on lichens, or person who is interested in identifying lichens please take 2 minutes in filling this questioner and help me in making this project a success. Please feel free to forward this link to any person who is interested in lichens so that they also can give feedback to improve this project.

Link to take the survey

I also thought of having a separate blog to keep log of my Final Year Project. I will be posting the link to that once I've created it.

Thanks.