It's all about certificates.

I hate it, I absolutely despise it, when the only motivation that people have for following a course or training session is the certificate. There's no harm in wanting a certificate. It is an additional garnish to your CV. But that is certainly not all. What about the experience? The knowledge acquired? Your own personal development? The certificate won't prove that you just became more efficient, it's how you apply the knowledge that will do that.

Remember when Gmauritius was going to be held? I'm sure some of you must have heard people asking about certificates. 'Cause it seems that they would not be able to learn much from Google, so they might just have a certificate to prove they were there!

Just last week when some buddies were talking about a training that the HRDC would be offering, some people dared ask about whether we're gonna have a certificate. I'm sure they did not register for the training because we don't know as of yet whether there will really be certificates.

Forget about the certificates dudettes and dudes, make the most of the experiences...

Hope...

Hope is great! It sometimes makes some stuff happen. But not every time, and certainly not for people who sit around wishing for hope to set every situation right. I'm just telling you that sometimes when everyone calls something a loss, hope can bust in and suddenly everything is doing great all over again.

I've never always been a partisan of hope but I've often been a positive person. I'm saying "often" here because sometimes some situations make it difficult to adopt a positive approach. 

Anyway, I like to think that good things come to those who deserve it. Despite being called a cynic by people around me, deep down I can be a hope freak. Just last Sunday when Jevin told me matter-of-factly that our printer would never work again, I told him it would. I told him there's hope and he silently acquiesced, perhaps because he did not want to hurt me. To cut the story short, the printer worked...

Maybe it was bound to work but I feel great to have kept my hopes high and not losing faith in the printer. 

There are several more instances when I did not lose hope and good consequences prevailed; for my academic results, when my dogs got very sick and the list is long...

I might be called a fool for believing in hope but well... I like the little mystical element that hope brings in one's life...

So dudettes and dudes, do you usually keep your hopes high or are you more likely to lose hope in tricky situations?

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is crap. The sooner people learn this, the better it would be for all of us. And maybe, and I say maybe, in a decade or a few years, if we're lucky enough, everyone will forget about valentines and we'll see the end of that torturing "special" day. And that's coming from someone who's been in a serious relationship for a long time...

There are so many stuff that annoy me to no limit about this day but I'll go with the most annoying ones.

1. The plush toys. 
First, those things are freaky. What kind of psycho would want to sleep with a plump thing that keeps its eyes open and constantly wears a stupid smile? And second, they give me allergies.

2. The fake flowers. 
Fake flowers should be banned. They cause allergies with all the dust and crap that they attract and are horrible to the touch and smell. I wonder why in all those years of technological advancement no one has ever thought of making a fake but realistic flower for Valentine's Day. It's because no one cares. This day is not important. Period.

3. The mushy couples. 
Yeah it's awesome to proudly hang out on Valentine's Day with your fake flower and plush toy, looking like a total idiot who's just got some kind of trophy. Except that in a few weeks the gifts won't mean big deal. You might even forget the name of the person who gave it to you.

But if you really wanna celebrate the day, for an absolutely crazy reason, do it originally and as inconspicuously as possible. For instance, I'll be making him a dessert tomorrow. Crap, it's not inconspicuous anymore! Oh well! I know you don't care. 

Happy "special" day anyway dudettes and dudes...

Babies are over-rated.

I'll never understand some people's obsession with babies. I know babies are so cute that they make your heart melt and bring you so much happiness, but that's only when the baby's not yours or when they're on pictures. It's great to take care of a baby for 5 minutes or 15 minutes maximum when the mom's busy. But it's so much greater when the 15 minutes are over and you can actually sigh and thank god the baby's not yours.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who would not want to have a baby one of these days. Come to think of it, babies are definitely in my future plans, just like education and a job were. Babies are a necessity, you know, to have a family and to have someone to whom I could narrate my life, just like my mum does with me. I've even thought of their names; I intend to have one called Jade and one called Jake, if ever there's 2 of them. That's to show how much I could want to have kids.

But my point is, people should not be obsessed with babies. They should instead think of the baby stage as the phase where they will be having sleepless nights, mood swings, a bare minimum sexual life and all other complex situations that follow. The only positive point about the baby phase is the pictures of that devilishly cute creature you will be sending to your relatives. People will say that they envy your life as a new mom but you'll know that's utter crap. But since your memory's quite short term and since you love your kid, after 4 or 5 years you will be forgetting all about the baby's tantrum and will concentrate more on telling your kid how cute and undemanding he/she was as a baby. 

Anyway, for me, the best years of child rearing are when the kid's grown enough to use words to communicate with you, that's around 18. Ok, I'm kidding. Let's say that as from 6 they would start to express themselves clearly and would start going to school so they could make you proud of all the efforts you've put in to make them become who they are. 

On the hard side, I know I'll be a good mom. That's cause I'll be applying HR principles to the rearing of my children. You know, motivation theories, leadership styles, commitment to the organisation (family in this case), remuneration and rewards, everyone of those would play a crucial role. You gotta use your education one of these days.

On the soft side, I'll be the caring and sometimes overprotective mom who'll be baking pies and cookies and spending some awesome time with the kids.

And so, dudettes and dudes, I can wait to have kids of my own in some years but I'm not naive enough to happily look forward to the pre-school phase.

And money ruins it all...

Hey dudettes and dudes! So it's the festive period of Maha Shivaratree yet again and on Sunday I went to Grand Bassin. Don't you feel like this festival comes a bit too often? I do! And so, I wore a churidar just to blend into the crowd at Grand Bassin but I found that it was not enough. It seems that some women are fond of wearing make-up while praying in the rain. But I'm not judging. Who am I to judge, anyway? I'm just that chick who likes to boast about not having to wear make-up to look good (yup I said it).

So anyway, while my father was praying and donating money to anyone who was asking for it, Jev and I were laughing at people while at the same time looking for his parents. It was one hell of a trip to Grand Bassin, quite unusual but I'd for once say that it was worth it. 

So if you're planning to take a trip to Grand Bassin you should be considering:

• Bringing along any protection from the rain that you own, umbrellas, raincoats, nothing would be too much.
• Laying your hand on bael leaves or you'll have to pay for it. (Yeah religion is a business, especially during this time of the year).
• Having a decent amount of cash in hand, especially if you're of the soft-hearted type since you'll be having at least 25 donation requests from the moment that you leave your vehicle to the time that you get back to it. 

But all in all, and even though I tend to sound sceptical, I like the spirit of this festival. The pilgrimage, the long hours of prayer, the fasting and the colours. I just wished that people would not spoil it by trying to make money out of it. Is that too much to ask for?

That hand in the sky

Freaky, huh?

In February I will be...

February has got to be the month baby! I know I tend to be optimistic for almost every month of every damned year but this time dudettes and dudes, I mean it. I plan to have some awful fun in February even with the various non-fun stuff (in the form of tests and assignments to submit) that will occur this month. 

So in February I plan to:

1. Throw a beach party with my buddies, we've got some stuff to celebrate together.

2. Have a bad-ass valentine's day with Jev and that won't include romantic craps. But I hope that it includes some chocolates.

3. Celebrate my birthday. Yeah I'll be filling you guys to the brim with this. It's gotta be the first time in years that I'm so excited about a birthday. 


4. Change my template totally as in going for a completely new one after sticking with this new one for 3 years.