Saturday, August 30, 2014
Spanish - Class I
Honestly, I didn't know what to expect on the 1st day. But I was glad I had joined up because I have wanted to learn a foreign language since a very long time. At the beginning of my career, I had done a basic Japanese language course conducted at one of the IT organizations I was working for. Maybe that had vetted my appetite. I never got the chance to follow through on what I had learnt though. Somewhere down the line I decided to learn one foreign and one Indian language - before I turn 60 :-) The choice of the Indian language was easy. I had realized over the years that learning any South Indian language would be an uphill, if not impossible, task. I was, and still am, told that if you learn one South Indian language, you can understand a bit of the other 3. But I guess that is not my cuppa tea, or should I say coffee? ;-) I want to learn Bengali instead - part of the reason being that I want to read the Bengali literature in the original. Let's see when I get down to that.
So now on to the choice of a foreign language. I wanted to go for something that is pronounced more or less the same way that it is spelt. So French and German were out. Plus it needed to be used across more than one country. Given the fact that Spanish is the second-most used language in the business worldwide, it was the natural choice. And I seemed to know a few words already - Adios, Hola, Gracias and Hasta La Vista (from The Terminator, of course!). :-)
'Spanish?' I asked a group of what looked like students as I stood in the classroom doorway. 'German' they said. The next classroom was for Spanish. As I occupied a bench someone asked from the doorway 'Chinese?'. I said 'Spanish'. Boy! Hats off to thsoe who want to learn Chinese. Patience is not one of my many virtues!
The teacher hadn't yet made his/her appearance. So I studied the crowd around me. Most of them were students from the look of things. I kind of envied them. Back in the Engineering college days, it was all we could do to just scramble up to complete the assignments on time. The thought of doing something extra-curricular never even occurred to anyone of us. Kids these days are lucky. But I was glad that so many had turned up. Clearly they wanted to utilize their time well. 3-4 people looked like they could be professionals. And one was a senior citizen.
A couple of minutes past 9am, the teacher walked in. Before I realized what was happening all the students got up. The professionals and the senior citizen had an amused look on their faces. I guess it has been a while since any of us had to get up because there was 'teacher on the bridge' :-)
First few minutes were spent in introductions and why each one of us was there that morning. Some of the students had the same reason as me - Spanish being the second most used language worldwide - for deciding to learn it. There were a few who had learnt French or German before. But about 4-5 of them said that there was no special reason for selecting Spanish. That stumped me a bit. Why would someone want to spend 2 hours of his/her life on a Sunday morning unless they wanted to do so?
Okay, next up on the agenda were salutations or Saludos - how do you say hello, bye, good morning/afternoon/night, sorry, excuse me and a couple of other things. By 10am the class was over. Wait, wasn't it supposed to go on till 11am? But the teacher said that she wanted to take up the alphabets next and would do so next class.
Alrighty then. Hasta Pronto. Adios. :-)
So now on to the choice of a foreign language. I wanted to go for something that is pronounced more or less the same way that it is spelt. So French and German were out. Plus it needed to be used across more than one country. Given the fact that Spanish is the second-most used language in the business worldwide, it was the natural choice. And I seemed to know a few words already - Adios, Hola, Gracias and Hasta La Vista (from The Terminator, of course!). :-)
'Spanish?' I asked a group of what looked like students as I stood in the classroom doorway. 'German' they said. The next classroom was for Spanish. As I occupied a bench someone asked from the doorway 'Chinese?'. I said 'Spanish'. Boy! Hats off to thsoe who want to learn Chinese. Patience is not one of my many virtues!
The teacher hadn't yet made his/her appearance. So I studied the crowd around me. Most of them were students from the look of things. I kind of envied them. Back in the Engineering college days, it was all we could do to just scramble up to complete the assignments on time. The thought of doing something extra-curricular never even occurred to anyone of us. Kids these days are lucky. But I was glad that so many had turned up. Clearly they wanted to utilize their time well. 3-4 people looked like they could be professionals. And one was a senior citizen.
A couple of minutes past 9am, the teacher walked in. Before I realized what was happening all the students got up. The professionals and the senior citizen had an amused look on their faces. I guess it has been a while since any of us had to get up because there was 'teacher on the bridge' :-)
First few minutes were spent in introductions and why each one of us was there that morning. Some of the students had the same reason as me - Spanish being the second most used language worldwide - for deciding to learn it. There were a few who had learnt French or German before. But about 4-5 of them said that there was no special reason for selecting Spanish. That stumped me a bit. Why would someone want to spend 2 hours of his/her life on a Sunday morning unless they wanted to do so?
Okay, next up on the agenda were salutations or Saludos - how do you say hello, bye, good morning/afternoon/night, sorry, excuse me and a couple of other things. By 10am the class was over. Wait, wasn't it supposed to go on till 11am? But the teacher said that she wanted to take up the alphabets next and would do so next class.
Alrighty then. Hasta Pronto. Adios. :-)
Spanish - Class II
I guess people still have got to get used to their classrooms. I had forgotten which floor the classroom was on. After roaming about on the first floor looking confused I remembered that it was on the second floor and finally managed to locate it. Before I could worry about the early onset of Alzheimer's, a couple of students walked by asking 'Chinese?', 'German?'. There sure is safety in numbers :-)
Hmmm....El Alfabeto O El Abecedario. How different can they be from the good old ABCDE, right? But wait. The letters seem to be having names. e.g. 'b' is 'be', 'c' is 'ce' and so on till 'z' which is called 'Seta'. Why? No idea. I was totally bewildered by the time we limped to 'z'. How in the name of God am I going to remember all this? The teacher made us all repeat the entire alphabet at least 5 times. Our recital got mixed with similar recitals floating from the other classrooms. And suddenly I got the old rhythm of being in school back. :-) The El Abecedario seemed just a teeny weeny bit easier.
Aha, not so fast. There are exceptions (aren't there always?) to the rules. I inwardly groaned. So 'c' with a, o or u is pronounced as 'k' (as in kilo) but with i and e becomes 's' (as in stone). Similarly, 'g' with a, o or u is pronounced as 'g' (as in game) but with i and e becomes 'h' (as in 'house'). Oh and BTW, the alphabet 'h' is silent in Spanish so 'hola' is actually pronounced as 'ola'.
The teacher then distributed exercise sheets with about 100-120 words across 3 pages. We had to take turns to list alphabets in each word and then pronounce it. Till 11, we managed to get through one page. So the rest was home work.
Thus ended my 2nd class of Spanish.
Hmmm....El Alfabeto O El Abecedario. How different can they be from the good old ABCDE, right? But wait. The letters seem to be having names. e.g. 'b' is 'be', 'c' is 'ce' and so on till 'z' which is called 'Seta'. Why? No idea. I was totally bewildered by the time we limped to 'z'. How in the name of God am I going to remember all this? The teacher made us all repeat the entire alphabet at least 5 times. Our recital got mixed with similar recitals floating from the other classrooms. And suddenly I got the old rhythm of being in school back. :-) The El Abecedario seemed just a teeny weeny bit easier.
Aha, not so fast. There are exceptions (aren't there always?) to the rules. I inwardly groaned. So 'c' with a, o or u is pronounced as 'k' (as in kilo) but with i and e becomes 's' (as in stone). Similarly, 'g' with a, o or u is pronounced as 'g' (as in game) but with i and e becomes 'h' (as in 'house'). Oh and BTW, the alphabet 'h' is silent in Spanish so 'hola' is actually pronounced as 'ola'.
The teacher then distributed exercise sheets with about 100-120 words across 3 pages. We had to take turns to list alphabets in each word and then pronounce it. Till 11, we managed to get through one page. So the rest was home work.
Thus ended my 2nd class of Spanish.
Friday, August 29, 2014
A must read for anyone who wants to invest directly in stocks instead of going through the mutual funds - Watch out for these warning signs in stocks
Crossing To Safety - Wallace Stegner
Nudge - Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
Investing The Templeton Way - Laura Templeton & Scott Phillips
Nudge - Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein
Investing The Templeton Way - Laura Templeton & Scott Phillips
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Came across the following quotes while reading a book on Agile estimation:
“Planning is everything. Plans are nothing.”
–Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
–Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
–General George S. Patton
“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”
–Leonard Bernstein
“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
–Niels Bohr, Danish physicist
“There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
–John von Neumann
“Planning is everything. Plans are nothing.”
–Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
–Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
–General George S. Patton
“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”
–Leonard Bernstein
“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
–Niels Bohr, Danish physicist
“There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
–John von Neumann
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