Family Picnic

Today I went to see the famous Penguin Parade at Phillip Island with my family. This event is pretty famous, as there isn't too many places you can go in the world to see penguins.

We reached around 4:30PM after 2 hour drive from Melbourne. The expected time for the Penguin Parade was 6:30PM.. So after taking the tickets to see the Penguin Parade, we decided to visit the The Nobbies & Seal Rock near by. The cliffs and dunes around The Nobbies were spectacular. 

The wind was fierce and whipping up the ocean like nobody's business, and I got some pretty good shots of ocean surf crashing against the rocks. 

We even spied a lone penguin lounging at the entrance to its burrow. So cute!

At 5:30PM we head back to the other end of the island to experience the Penguin Parade. What an aptly-named attraction! Phillip Island's penguin colony claims to be Australia's most famous natural attraction, the world's smallest species of penguin and the only species found in Australia. The birds live in large colonies and they nest in the sand dunes, digging out burrows for themselves under the roots of the dune vegetation. Each morning the birds head out to sea to fish, and return each evening just after dusk. It was this "parade" in from the water that we had come to see.

A boardwalk led from the visitors centre out to the viewing platforms, and we marched out there along with a whole pile of other people to take our places on the beach and to wait for the birds to arrive.

It was nice weather when compared to other days except the chilling ocean breeze. We sat in a roped off area just above the beach at sundown and waited for the hundreds of little penguins come jetting out of the surf and start waddling up onto the beach. These hundreds of penguins, smartly dressed up in their tuxedos, marching along to the beach is really a great attraction to anyone.

I have no pictures of this magical event, or anything else from the evening, because there was a strict no camera policy enforced by the park rangers. The penguins are very sensitive to bright lights, and the camera flashes would upset them greatly - even to the point of driving them back into the water or leading them to abandon the colony! And since it is utterly impossible to regulate the use of flash photography, the centre had gone one step further and just banned photography altogether.

We raced up to the boardwalk, and the penguins were all around us! Baby ones coming out of their little holes in the hills to greet their parents, a couple having arguments, some just standing there being adorable. We were not allowed to take pictures, not allowed to touch, we just followed the penguins quietly as they made their way up the hill, overwhelmed by the cuteness of it all, wishing we could put one in our pockets and run away with it.

Since we were not allowed to take photos of these lil ones, I'm just posting the Penguin Parade photo I found on Google. Pretty much exactly what we saw!

Before closing this post, I'm posting a funny notice board I found at the car park!

And the stupid me had looked to make sure that no lil penguin is lost under our car before leaving the island!!!

Vishu

Festivals are always incomplete without family & friends together.. This is the first time I'm away from home for Vishu & the day just passed like any other day..!! Home-Uni-Home.. Thats all..!! There was no celebration or sense of happiness..!

Saw the only one Malayalee friend @ Uni.. The wishes we passed were the only good thing happened today..!! Felt sad, as he said he & his girl friend was going to have Vishu Sadya @  a friend's place.. I  missed my Vishu lunch @ home..

This is life..!! Not all the things in life can be kept forever..!!

I wish no more days be like this..!!

On Vishu

Apr 15, 2010

Aham Brahmasmi

'Aham Brahmasmi' ~ Two words with so much meaning!

I saw this on Mahesh's blog. Happened to hear about him through a friend's FB status update. regarding his suicide..! Mahesh Mahadevan, 23 years, was a Ph. D student @ the University of California. I was going through his literary works at 'Stumble Upon' & 'Blogspot'. Once you enter into his writings, you can easily sense the talent he posses.. I really feel sorry for him. There was really a long way for him to go... But for some reason, he just suddenly stopped your life..!

Copy pasting the last note he posted on his blog before committing suicide..
Tried to find the meaning between the words.. But no clue! 

My stream of thought drains

Created Apr 10

 

Schadenfreude - the term doesn't really apply when you laugh at your own misery, does it?
The one time you take the huge leap of faith and expect your system (that works too well otherwise) to simply work, it doesn't. If I can laugh at that, I have reached (going by German word synthesis, also called in German as germanwordsynthesis (if you get the drift)), selbstschadenfreude (now I might have jumped the gun on the rules of German word synthesis, but there's only so much a man can do for now).
Nevertheless, a tear in my eye gleams at the radiance of this beautiful line that (henceforth) gets preserved here: I am your clouds; you are my sea, I love you, and forever we shall be!

Miss would be a thoroughly insufficient (note the irony) verb to describe what I feel, oh heaven-sent blot of color that made the canvas of my life what it is today! Nevertheless...

And with that, I was not ashamed, but now as quick as I appeared, and played this lovely game, I must now depart, as quickly as I came. I bid you farewell, for you were simply lovely. Now fly towards your new love, like a flock of dovely(s).
We are now separated, but not forever.

Dear Mahesh,

May your soul rest in peace!

May your family & friends have enough strength to go through these days!

Six Thinking Hats!!

Here comes the new post!

Just back after attending the LEAD leadership training program. Today's workshop was all about 'How to make effective decisions in life..?' The three hour workshop was conducted by the RMIT Student Counselors for 13 of us..

The workshop mainly focused on Edward de Bono's lateral thinking style. This method is popularly known as 'Six Thinking Hats' & was initially developed in 1980. The six hats represent six modes of thinking and are directions to think rather than labels for thinking. That is, the hats are used proactively rather than reactively.

The idea is simple. Each time you wear an imaginary hat, you switch your thinking style in accordance to the hat you are wearing. When you change the hat, you change your mind..!

After collecting all sorts of information wearing each hat, you make a decision wearing the blue hat.. [Can make a decision without wearing that too..! ;) ]

To know more about the Six Thinking Hats, click here

I'm sure, you are gonna check it out..!

Thatz all for now.. Not sure I am gonna use this again!

Just scribbling down.. Who knows if one day I want make an "effective" decision! :D

So signing off.. Already late for the Database Class.. :)

And finally its done!!

Sigghhhh!! Finally I completed the Java programming assignment..

Just a small java program to control the movements of a robot. The robot has to move the blocks of varying size from a source pile to the target pile, without touching the obstacles with different heights in between. I was struggling with this assignment for the past 10 days... And finally its done..!!

In fact it is not completed to the full scope. I stopped it when I covered the basic requirements in the assignment spec! Not investing too much time to get the extra 10 points apart from the assignment score 60 points. I think I am doing something good to myself by stopping my work at the right time. I should make my time available for other subjects too..!

Don't want to repeat my past again! Sometimes running for perfection costs too much.. That's what happened with me in my previous role as a Business Analyst. Always tried to bring perfection in my work & finally I was screwed up!

So now, I'm changed..! And here is my new mantra : "Strive for perfection, but know when to settle!"