Ah revisions!

When I'm supposed to be revising, I always tend to find everything more appealing than my revision notes. For instance, I'm always making up breaks and giving myself treats. You've got the tea break, the toilet break, the let's-cuddle-the-cat break, the let-me-put-on-some-kohl break, the what-I-am-wearing-tomorrow break and finally, my favourite, the let's-try-a-new-recipe break. As for my treats, they come in the form of an episode of How I Met Your Mother after each 2 chapters are done with.

Despites all those breaks and treats, I'm managing to progress with the revision fairly smoothly. I'm not rushing into it 'cause my exam is on the 2nd of December. Some people might find that short, I'm really thinking that I've got lots of time. I hope I won't be proven wrong.

The thing is, giving myself breaks and treats really motivates me to keep going and I'm actually close to finding the revision fun! So I'll say that this breaks-and-treats method is definitely a keeper!

Let there be kindness...

People don't always understand the importance of being kind in everyday life. In businesses in particular, kindness or politeness plays a crucial part. It's not just about greeting people or smiling at them, although it does start from these. It's also about the overall attitude adopted while meeting the customers or clients. Most importantly it's about how you welcome people to participate in your business.

In Mauritius, some organisations all too often neglect to give enough importance to how customers are being attended to, thus keeping an important part of their stakeholders unhappy. Shops and supermarkets are concrete examples of this. Quality service rarely prevails in those organisations, at best the service is acceptable.

Do you ever come out of a supermarket feeling satisfied or saying "Wow! That was one hell of a service!"?

You see, the low quality of service is so generally dispersed that customers could stop expecting something better. I mean, if you have no means to compare the service, you won't even notice if one particular supermarket's service is better or worse. The service would just fall in the mean, it would just be acceptable service, as usual. And that should be avoided.

Supermarkets should compete in terms of quality of service and other factors other than price. If we, as customers, start being choosy about quality of service then probably changes would start taking place. That might take some time but the most important part of it is to get out of that "zombie customers" state and to stop letting organisations choose the way they want to treat their customers.

All-in

So the cyclone was a disappointment, the next day, that is on Wednesday, we got the whole package of hot, sunny and slightly breezy weather. No dark clouds, no rain, everything had disappeared. But that was good as well. I attended classes and most importantly I played poker with my gals.

Apart from that, yesterday I got to know that the Saturday test I've been supposed to be revising for has been postponed and guess what I did after knowing about that? I started revising! Hell yeah! I was so grateful for this that I actually started reading my notes. Now how good is that as a motivator?

I'm off to revise dudettes and dudes, 'cause I've got no test. So, no pressure. See y'all!

A cyclone is a cyclone

We've got a cyclone coming up (hopefully) which goes by the name of Anja. Weird name if you ask me. The name does not promise the destructive intensity that Hollanda or even Gamede had. But I'm not going to judge a cyclone by its name. Instead, I'm going to hope and look forward to what it has to offer.

The weather has been cloudy and rainy right from this morning and that discouraged me from going out and kept me cozy in the warmth of my home. I've tried to revise for a test scheduled this Saturday but you know how distracting a day at home could be, at least for me it is. So I ended up watching TV, tidying up my room and taking two showers.

So now I'm off for dinner dudettes and dudes and I hope that the weather gets worse by tomorrow. Oh and I'm going to give my revisions yet another try! But I don't promise anything...

Coach Carter

Today started like any regular Monday morning. I woke up early, lazily read some blog posts and news in bed and managed to get myself late. So I showered in a hurry, dressed in a hurry, ate in a hurry, made my bag in a hurry. And in my hurry I managed to forget a thing or two at home. But in all this, I got to catch the Express bus without even having to sprint.

Yet, in our human resource development class, something "out of the box" happened. We got to watch the whole of this movie, Coach Carter, starring Samuel Jackson and that was awesome! I should have thought of bringing the popcorn! The movie, which is based on a real story, depicts the life of young high school basketball players and how the new coach, Ken Carter, changes their lives by applying unusual coaching techniques and making use of his own life principles. This movie is poignant, full of humour and contains some valuable lessons.

The reason why we were showed this movie in class, dudettes and dudes, is simple; we are currently studying coaching at work and this concept is very much inspired by sports coaching techniques. This movie is in this sense a case study for us and I guess it's the first time that I really and entirely enjoyed a case study.

That diet...

I've been thinking of dieting. You know how it goes, there's a cousin's wedding coming up and I wanna look decent in a saree. I've started out last Monday and the hardest part of it had been giving up on the chocolates and ice-creams. I can even hear those tasty beasts calling me from their spot in the fridge. Damn! I should have eaten them all before embarking on this diet. But it's too late now so I might as well cope with it.

Italian ice-cream (cookies and strawberry) bought at Pereybere.

The wedding's on the 2nd of December if I'm not mistaken, I never seem to be remembering exact dates. A wedding in December's heat, that gotta be crazy! I will have to endure 2 long weeks of deprivation and be done with the wedding ceremony.

Did you dudettes and dudes ever go on a diet? How did it turn out?

3 years of blogging

I'm quite jaded for the time-being, I've lost a great deal of my cheer and sense of humour somewhere down the road between projects and tests. I've had a weird sleeping pattern for the past week and I need to get back to normal again. I know I should always be doing my work in advance but there's some kind of thrill in working when the deadline's close and submitting the work just in time and that hardly affects the quality of the work, I wonder how. Perhaps it's the adrenaline that gets the mind to work better. Have you guys ever felt that?

Coming back to the 3 years of blogging, I'm letting out an unenthusiastic "yoohoo". I haven't really been blogging lately and I hope that the coming holidays would cater for that.

So it's been 3 years now since I wrote my first post. It was about cheerleading and looking back on it, I've realised how stupid but fun I was back in those days. You see, that's one of the major reasons why I blog. No, not to realise how stupid I was, but to remind me of all the good or bad times I've had and to share those incidents with you dudettes and dudes and aliens out there!

So that's a happy three years to my blog and a huge thanks to the dudettes and dudes who've been reading it...

Bed ain't bad

After going through a project-marathon, I feel free today. I haven't yet recovered from my messed up sleeping pattern but I'm getting to it, slowly. I submitted by research proposal yesterday and will hear feedbacks on it as from next week. So I can relax a little.

Yesterday I attended an HRMS committee meeting for the first time. HRMS is short for Human Resource Management Society and it's a club comprising of HRM students at UoM. I managed to have a responsibility assigned to me for a forthcoming event, that of contacting the media and I backed an activity proposal from a friend of mine. The president of the society is hoping to draw the interest of more students to our activities and I think that what has been proposed will probably do the trick. Briefly, it's about interpreting common scenes at work and making the audience decide what went wrong and what could be improved. I hope we manage to find enough volunteers who are willing to play the roles.

Ah anyway dudettes and dudes, I think I'll go for a nap. It's so good to be at home during the day, plus the weather is warm and breezy... Think my bed is calling me. See ya'll!

Dear Cookies and Co.

Dear Cookies and Co.,

Thanks for not letting me down on Saturday. You did not just taste awesome, you also helped me impress my mother-in-law and that, is a great feat considering that she is an amazing cook.

I was complimented on my cooking talent thanks to you and you guys helped in making this party oh-so-memorable for more than a few.

So once again, Cookies and Co., Thank You!

The bloody chocolate cake

Sometimes you gotta thank the cakes dudettes and dudes, even if that makes you sound a loony, especially if it's on your blog.