Rant on the education system.

"Education has not evolved with modern times. I find it horrible that only 15-20 credits (4-5 classes) of my entire college education (currently 175+ credits) are even remotely useful to my career. The fact that a student (freshman/sophomore) working 3 months in the computer science industry can easily outperform and outclass a full grad without experience demonstrates a severe failure in curriculum and education ethos.

Countless manpower hours are wasted in this country (and others) due to the failure of higher education. Poor code needs to be fixed, maintained, redesigned, recoded, and often discarded completely. Some would argue that this would be a failure of design, but industry experience shows that good design, although necessary, can only triage the impact of poor coding. All this poor code starts a severely wasteful budget draining loop and this leads to even lower quality programmers working for even lower pay (outsourcing).

As we approach the limits of computational processing power and speed. It is becoming increasingly important that institutions emphasize EXTREMELY high levels of code quality. An engineer that can merely write code is functionally worthless and easily replaceable. Useful developers write code with optimization, modularity, maintainability, collaboration, and adaptability in mind. When developers write code with these principles, software will improve from its base layer all the way to the application/user layers. These intelligent developers are so rare they often get sucked into administrative roles and their skills arent put to good use. Optimization, modularity, maintainability, collaboration, adaptability, and self-learning all need to be critical core components of the Computer Science Curriculum (all facets of CS depends on these principles).

If all new graduates could develop with these core skills it would have an immense impact not only within companies but within the country as well. Companies will finish their projects sooner but also at a much higher quality, allowing for future projects to be completed faster. This starts a chain reaction. Companies will have more money to spend on software development if software maintenance (wasted time) can be reduced. If the quality of insourced code yields higher profit and growth than outsourced code companies will look to create more positions within the country. This creates more jobs for graduates and a generally increased GDP.

For example, is not necessary to force CS students into useless classes on the low level aspects of networking. This is an IT/CE focus and is nothing but a meaningless chore to to a CS student. Instead offer a course on developing network applications, CS students will be much more engaged and interested. But most importantly.. this is an extremely useful thing to learn. It is near impossible to find software that does not/will not interface with a network of some sort. So why are we teaching students to calculate attenuation or how many cellphones a cluster of towers can support at a given bandwith when it is completely useless information to the CS student.

In summary, almost all CS students are only in college for their piece of paper (degree) and their actual academic enrichment even begin until after college. A travesty!"
-Zeeshaun Masood

Memories.

I was so caught up with what's true and what's not. If people liked me or not. If life is sync-ed up with the idea of finding a meaning or not.

I am done. And I want to pursue happiness.

I just want to create memories.

I don't want to live a pretentious life. And I don't want to be fake.

I will smile when I want to and I will take pictures with whom I want to.

I will give all my heart to everything I love and not waste it on things insignificant.

Amen.

Adoption.

“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”
Pablo Casals

"What if a child is born into poverty and sickness, but had the potential to be a future Gandhi or Einstein?! What if the circumstances make him something that he isn't meant to be?"
Rapi

Intended action to adopt a child - Has not happened yet.

So I decided to go ahead and virtually adopt a child. I might not see her every day or kiss her good night and tuck her in... but I know Im making a difference by helping her out financially. I will write letters and keep in touch :D

Her name is Katie, 11 years old and she's from Sierra Leon. :)

"Katie is pretty girl who lives with her parents in Bumban Town. They live in a small house made of mud brick and roofed with zinc. Her parents are subsistence farmers and traders and it is out of the farming and trading that they survived. They parents spend less than US$180 per annum. Katie sleeps on a mat spread on the floor. Katie is very intelligent in school. She walks to school bare footed and wear torn uniform. Her hobbies are balance ball, singing and dancing cultural music. She is a Limba by tribe and a Christian by religion. With the help of a sponsorship program, she would make a better tomorrow."

My love and prayers are for her! I wish her all the success and joy in the world!

A humble influence.

It is not going to change the world but I did something I couldn't possibly consider putting on my to-do list a couple of years ago. Charity. worldvision.org has been my personal favorite for a while now and I finally contributed.

It had been a long journey for me to be able to get to this point. I am not saying I did something mind-blowing or anything unachievable. However, saving money had always been an issue with me. If I find even two dollars in my jeans pocket, I would spend it on clothes, perfumes, accessories, nail polishes and many silly things that don’t really matter in the end. I was so addicted to fashionable things that I was on collegefashion.net even on the nights before exam days. If I could make it from pay check to pay check without going negative on my debit card, it would be a moment to celebrate. I didn’t know I was this addicted till I received this one email forward (which I had seen a lot of times earlier, however had an impact on me this time) that showed an African kid walk with shoes made of plastic bottles while the rest of the world had a choice between Pumas and Nikes. I was disgusted in myself. It hurt my ego so much to a point where I couldn’t really accept myself while using Hypnose or Stevemaddens.

I knew I had to make a change and I didn’t entirely know how to. I wanted this change to happen over night. It didn’t. I was disappointed but didn’t stop. I started with giving away 90% of my clothes to good will and friends. It saved me a lot of time every morning from trying 3 different outfits. There was no confusion, I only picked so many clothes to keep and they look good on me no matter how I wear them. I don’t think it hindered me from pursuing a ‘fashionable’ life one bit. I blocked sites like forever21.com and chineselaundry.com on my laptop. I could unblock them- but I resisted.

First I found myself saving so much time to actually catch up with friends instead of being sucked into the internet black hole. When catching up with friends, I chose to workout with them instead of dumping Starbucks down my throat. We all know the benefits of working out. I cut out friends that made me waste money and time. I might be still acquaintances with them but I definitely don’t go shopping with them on daily basis. I have learned how to live healthy and happy- thanks to Golbon! (Sorry I never mentioned it, but you are an amazing friend, don’t get all teary now :P)

I was contemplating life today, (which I constantly do but never exceptionally useful) and found myself to be much happier than I used to be a couple of years ago. I reflected on the past and realized what that single email forward had done to me. Whoever that kid in the photo was, had done more to me than he could possibly realize, and I had to give back one way or the other. I chose charity.

Ps. I have been very cautious about sharing my addiction and the change process. I was worried about how others might judge me now that I am going to be a frugal spender. Then realized it was my Amygdala inducing fear and such. Screw you Amygdala- I am free now!

Yet another decision has been made.

Better lonesome than befriend a fickle personality. Will help me in the long run. :)

Mood swings.

A few days ago I was somehow stuck with this brilliant idea that I should quit everything and start from scratch. I was somehow not satisfied with my life. My quest to encounter something incredible that would ultimately bring meaning to this pointless “pawn” life wasn’t even remotely taking shape. Don’t get me wrong, if I were running behind this vibrantly glamorous idea of being successful, I am very close to it. Hell, I work for Harley Davidson; I don’t think it can get any better unless Bill Gates walks up to me, hands me his empire and says take it I am going to apply for a position under Mr. Jobs. And since I ‘changed’ my major to computer science, the brain has been thoroughly scraping away the rust that had been built upon the left hemisphere. But one fine day, I woke up and said let me just do it another way and see what happens. I only said it, I have not acted upon it yet.

For some bizarre reason, I can’t comprehend why I don’t just let go of what I have now and dive into the unknown. I can almost smell that different life and I could bite into it if I want to. Right this second! One little persuasive argument and I am out. I start thinking about how I do have an amazing job with even sweeter people to work with me. How I love to go to school and there is no place on earth that would teach me to learn (except 216.239.51.99 of course).

I am undeniably a very confused person. I am constantly choosing between traditional methods and contemporary ones. However, not everyone is awarded the opportunity to choose. Either you are born in a traditional family or you are a nomad. I am one of the very few statistics that do exist. I could make it a completely pulsating life if I choose to! Only if I choose to! I have the luxury to choose a between a competitive fast paced life and to understand and take things at my pace, not necessarily slow. Regardless, I am somehow always drawn to the simple breakdowns of reaching goals and heart touching inspirational quotes. I continue to re-experiment the already experimented life approaches. So the outcome most usually is the same. Its not my struggle to be different, its a struggle to understand and reason it out. If i fall into the realm of walk this path and you will reach THE destination, it will be too late on the day I realize that it wasn't the destination I was meant to go to. I will have missed my entire journey. Or may be the outcome might not be as bad. It might just be my amature shots into the dark. I don't know. I guess I never will till I make a decision and learn to stick to it.

perfection.

I am so content at the moment... it cannot be expressed! I have gone beyond being happy. I don't laugh till I get tears in my eyes no more. I don't hold my stomach and fall on the bed screaming the voices of joy anymore. I have surpassed it all. I have gone beyond being ecstatic.

I have my twinkle smile all the time. It might not be visible to all, but he who needs to see it can. I walk with no worries in the mind. There is nothing left pending with life. I have closed all doors, everyone and everything is in the castle. This is the post-celebration syndrome. This is the- I have finished climbing up the mountain, yay, need to only get down with no food or water left- part of life.

I am in love with a lot of things- life, family, flowers, books, craziness, etc.

I want to be what I am now forever.

This is it. :)