I hate good-byes

"Why cant we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos." - Snoopy

Two of the best years of my life is came to an end and once again everything changed. Living in an apartment close to my college with two wonderful girls had been the best years of my life Through them I got to make new friends who will remain my life-long buddies. My life has changed again. Sometimes I wonder why things change so much; why can’t it just stay the same? But of course I know the answer very well. If life were to remain stagnant we would have never learned anything, never valued life and never valued ourselves. 

All the wonderful memories, the fun-times, the trips, night-outs and the gossips sessions can never be forgotten. When I look back I feel I have truly grown-up and evolved as an adult with a better personality and character. 


After that I left my student life to join the professional world. I have opened another book full of new memories with the old ones still fresh in my mind. 


2011 has been yet another year filled with surprises, sadness, moments of joy and ended with my wishes  coming true! Here's wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Was 2011 your year?

PR Diaries

So, it's been 4 months since I started working at a PR firm. I have learned more in 4 months than I did in 4 years of college. That doesn't mean a college degree is useless. I started my networking in college, attended workshops (wish I attended a lot more) and got good exposure when it came to learning the basics and kickstarting my career.

• Always, always pay attention to details. 
• It's important to keep the clients up-to-date with everything you have been doing.
• Follow up, follow up and then follow up again with pitches
• Always cover up your work and keep your boss up-to-date with your work. (Always helps to let your boss know you are working hard.)
• Know everything about your client before pitching it to editors and writers.
• Always be in good terms with journalists and writers. 
• Never feed the story to the editor, ask their opinion on the story angle.
• Organization and prioritizing is very important when handling multiple accounts.

These are a few tips that I feel are important for anyone working in the PR field. It always helps to pass on the advice/tips and experiences, so hit me up with your ideas and thoughts! 

Passion, Dreams & Desires

Somebody pinch me, am I really a working-girl now?

I have heard that working is tedious and that you will start craving for weekends. But so far, I have loved working. Except for getting up early, I absolutely love going to work, putting my brain to work and of course being appreciated by my boss for my work.

I have just started at the bottom-most rung of the career ladder. I have a long way to go. However, I feel that every experience is taking me closer to my goal. Somedays, I feel that I'm worthless working hard for nothing. However, those are the days when I have spoken to people who do not understand the importance of passion and only give importance to money.

I encourage everyone to follow their passion no matter what others say. There will be some people who will continue to discourage you. But stand your ground. Follow your dreams and desires. I am speaking from experience!

"Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from  focusing on what excites you." - Oprah Winfrey


I am now understanding the importance of following my passion. If I hadn't followed my passion and just followed the advice I got from most people, I would have cursed myself every single day. I see people around me complaining about work and how they don't connect to what they are doing. I just wish they had followed their dreams so they wouldn't be in a position to complain.

Everyone has dreams, but only a few can make their dreams come true. I am one of them. This is because passion has a key role in making these dreams come true. Once you realize your passions, it's just a matter of time before your dreams come true.

Remember, "Nothing great in this world has ever been accomplished without passion!"

Stressed out!

Career, jobs, resumes, cover letters, interviews and money- these are the only things running in my head. Finding a job and gaining experience has consumed me to the extent that I have forgotten what it is to be care-free and without worries.

But this not right. Life is not just about jobs and money, its about enjoying while you are young and alive. Its about exploring, making mistakes, falling down only to rise and learn from these mistakes. Don't you think?

Sometimes in life...

…you have to be a little selfish.

…you have to let go of friendships that aren’t constructive.

…you have to cut yourself off to put yourself first.

…you have to get real, and be real, to the core.

…you have to push the negativity out of your mind, or as Jo says, get out of your own head.

…you have to find ways to surround yourself with the influences you need.

…and get rid of the ones you don’t.

…you have to stop thinking about the big picture and start breaking it down into pieces that can actually be swallowed.

…you have to “just do it”.

…you have to break out of that shell, letting go of fear and anxiety.

…you have to stop trying to make everyone understand.

…and start realizing that it’s okay if they don’t.

…you have to find yourself, and start living your life for yourself.

…you have to stop worrying about who you might become and what you might leave behind.

…and get excited for who you might become and what might be ahead.

I picked this up from a blog named 'Quater for her thoughts'. I felt that this blog was inspiring and thought it might be good to share it. When I read this, I felt good. I felt like someone was personally giving me this advice. 

Peopled!

I meet/see/observe different kinds of people every single day and it is so interesting that some of them are extremely interesting, some are so weird, and many are just plain fun to observe!I just love observing people, imagining how they lead their lives and what they are thinking while they are walking past me. I just wonder if any of these random people are ever going to come into my life! I have many good experiences and some not that good. I link myself to each person whom I see or meet and try to learn something from his/her behavior.

There is one person I don't want to be linked with or ever want to meet again: my Computer Science TA (teaching assistant) who I respected and thought highly of him because he helped me a lot in understanding C++. I took his class a year back. Recently, I met him in a cafe and I was very excited to see him. I was talking to him and told him about how I switched to Communication because I was not interested in Engineering. He smiled and said "well, girls are better at such soft arts and should not take up CS". The respect I had for him just vanished. He has no clue about the capabilities of a girl/women. First of all, girls are very intelligent and second of all every field is equally important and challenging. Passion is the key to success. I was not interested in Engineering which made me unhappy. Though I was uninterested and did not put any effort I did pretty well as a Computer Science student. I chose a different career path because I don't want to curse myself in the future for not following my passion and be a miserable rat forever. Today, when I am actually following my passion, I feel that this field is equally challenging and requires a different set of skills altogether. The difference is I love my major and want to make a career out of this course of study. It wasn't that I was not intelligent enough to pursue engineering, it was just that I was more concerned about my happiness and interest. So neither engineering nor any other 'soft field' is superior nor inferior. Every course, every field, every subject is equally important and equally challenging. Stereotyping is one of the worst things ever. So I decided to show people like him that we girls are intelligent and that stereotyping is just a way to make snap judgements about people which are wrong and plain rude. I do not hate him or anything, I just feel sad for him because he is clearly backward in his thoughts. This is the 21st century, where girls/women are succeeding in all fields including the male dominated fields. Such people just need to fast forward their minds to the current situation and realize that they are way behind. Anyway, I just needed to put that out because such people do exist and that we girls should not be put off by them.

There are others who just have so much life in them that I feel so happy just by seeing them. I just love people who have a zest for life. Whenever I come across such people, I think to myself; life hands you all kinds of things, so instead of cribbing about life, it is so much fun to think about the brighter side of everything. After a series of incidents, I realized one thing : "If you love life, life will love you back" So I decided that I am going to be a happy soul and try to always think about the positive experiences and also see the bright side in the negative experiences. Happiness is contagious. I observed that whenever I am full of joy and smiling, people around me are also happy and look at me with such warmth and joy. We just don't realize that if one person is happy, all the people surrounding that person are also happy.

Each new experience prepares us to handle life better. There are different kinds of people out there and each kind teaches us a new lesson. I am a changed person now and I feel that I have changed for the better. People changed me , experiences with different people changed me .

Food for thought!

Today we were reading an excerpt from Noam Chomsky's book - Chomsky: On Democracy and Education. The class got into a heated debate when we were discussing Chomsky's comment on patriarchal and egalitarian societies. He has said that China and other Asian countries still have patriarchal societies while America has egalitarian society. So, he concludes that America has moved upward in the cultural ladder meaning that the other countries are backward. In a way he is right. Though America does have its own issues , it does to some extent exercise individual rights and gender equality. But that doesn't mean that the countries that don't follow egalitarian society are inferior. Every culture is different and should be respected for that. Each culture has its own pros and cons and no culture seems to be perfect. But we should always strive towards achieving what is best for us and not think about how superior or inferior we are compared to others. As long as we show respect to others, other cultures and other countries we can surely go high up the cultural ladder . It is left to us to decide what kind of a culture we want to follow. Our ancestors followed patriarchal society because men were actually stronger and more powerful than women and so they were the dominant gender. But now men and women are equally strong and powerful so we should be able to lead each other to the right path rather than being forced to follow orders. 


"....like peeling away layers of an onion....for cultural reasons, the move away from patriarchy is a step upward , not just a change, It's step toward understanding our true nature ." (Chomsky) . He is right when he says that the farther we move from a patriarchal society , the more advanced we are. We are all humans and we should all be treated with the same respect. Why should there be any discrimination when we are all co-existing in the same planet with the same mental and physical capacities? Humans dominate animals , men dominate women, why should there be any kind of domination? Yes, there should be domination not discrimination, else the world will be in chaos. But that doesn't mean that the ones who are dominated should be disrespected. Even in egalitarian societies there is always a leader. Its just that everybody is given equal opportunities to choose their leaders and that everyone has an equal chance to voice their opinion. So, let us all hold hands and reach the final step of the cultural ladder which is: making this world a place filled with love, respect and peace.

Dreams do come true!

"Dad, when I grow up I want to be a Journalist. I want to write stories and interview people."

I was in 8th grade. I had aced my English exam and was praised for my essays which proved that I was good at writing. I was suddenly eager to grow up and become a Journalist. I wanted to interview people and write stories. Little did I know that this was not just a dream, it was a passion. Writing has always helped me get out my emotions. Whenever I am sad, happy, angry or upset and frustrated, I write. I write furiously, I write to get all the emotions out of my system, I write so that one day when I read those pages I will remember exactly how I felt and what I was thinking at that time.

"Dear Diary (25/11/2004)
I am extremely happy today. I was awarded the 'Outstanding Student of the Award......" and so it went on.

Every emotion and every moment is captured in my diaries. Yes, since 4th grade I have got into a habit of writing in my diary. I love writing. It is my passion. I wrote few stories and continued writing in my diary. However as I grew up, I became practical and thought about my career as something that needs to be stable and which helps me get a fat paycheck at the end of each month. I forgot about my dream to be a Journalist.

2011 brought me happiness because my dream came true. I am a Journalist and I have my own column. I interview people and write what I want.

Yes dreams do come true.

I work at a newspaper called Campus Circle. My first article was published on 26th January 2011 and my column is named 'The Greener side' .

Check it out -->
http://www.campuscircle.com/review.cfm?c=Blogs&sc=The%20Greener%20Side

What Next?

Graduation, jobs, money, getting settled, further studies - these are the words constantly running in my head now that my 4 years of fun and frolic are nearly coming to an end.  As is the case with any student who is about to graduate, I have this mixed emotions building up within me. I don't want to graduate, well the reason is obvious - leaving the comforting and secured shell only to move to a scary, exposed and open world. However I do want to graduate, I want to explore this world, I want to work, be independent and more importantly be successful! :)

            For quite sometime I have been going over what I want to do after I graduate. I thought getting a Masters' Degree would be a supercool idea. I would be still in the study mode and could continue to pull all-nighters and be high on caffeine. But the question was "do I know for sure what I want to be doing?" My mind did not answer this right away. I want to go into advertising, no I want be in PR, well Journalism is always there...and it went on. So I halted, took a deep breath and started the journey of finding the job that I think would suit me and my interests. US has been great to me since it helped me to conveniently change my career path and deviate it to suit my interests. Not all of us know what we want to do with out life and I am proud to say I am one of them. I am proud because it gives me an opportunity to experiment and try new things in life before finally figuring out the right path. It is going to be one long and exciting journey, for sure. Learning new things, making new mistakes, rising up after every mistake and becoming a new and improved person, each time fills me with enthusiasm and excitement to take the next step.

             So, for those of you who are like me, start focusing on finding your passion. Passion is the key to success. For the next 40 years you will be working in the same field and if you are not passionate or interested, then you will be cursing your life and job. So don't let this happen. Choose the right career that interests and then success will follow.