Go + Day1

As soon as I joined Oracle, I was told, in the induction that all the new joinees would be taken to a resort for a week-end where the 10 Oracle values would be inculcated into us thro' group activities. From then on, I have been looking forward to this 'training'.. It was called Go Plus.

I recieved a mail asking me to report to the head office (which is called OTP here and I shall refer to it as OTP in future) on May 18th 2006, Thursday at 5 PM sharp. The course was going to commence on May 18th and finish on May 20th, Saturday evening. I was asked to bring a pair of sports shoes and a torch apart from my clothes and the other essential stuff (which included make up and cosmetic stufff.. come on guys, im a gal after all :))

I took half-a-day off and left my office @ Whitefield at 2 PM,went home, slept for a while.. at around 4.30 I took an auto to reach OTP. It was raining heavily..(it was that week when B'lore was cooling down terribly).. good thing i thought of taking an unbrella...
We assembled at the cafeteria, all of us who were nominated for Go+.. There were around 50 ppl in number and we were split into 2 groups of 25 each... I started making friends from the first moment.. I met this girl called 'Revathy' who, i immediately was drawn to.. She was a very bubbly and cute girl and we hit it off spontaneously.. Our batch of 25 boarded the bus to go to the resort.. At this point, I didnt know where we were going to. The bus took some god forsaken route thro' Bannerghatta Road.. I remember, we passed by HoneyWell and IBM.. But the rest of the travel was a blur and i can only remember that the roads were all bumpy (so, wats new??) and by the time we reached, I wanted to use the loo :) :)

We reached around 7.15 PM to this place called 'Eagle Ridge'. We had to walk a bit inside since the bus couldnt get in.It was dark, but the place looked impressive even though i couldnt make out much.. When we reached the reception , we were given welcome drinks (i guess it was Rasna) and we were shown our rooms.. By the time we reached the resort, all the girls knew each other by their first names... jyothi, Nachiamma (called Nach in short), Nandhini and Revathy.. totally 5 gals in the group...
Three of us had to share a cottage..I had to share the cottagewith Revathy and Nandhini... I wasnt too comfortable with Nandhini..She wasnt talking that much and her body language somehow communicated to me that she was an intimidating person.. (A classic example of how frst impressions are disastrous.. i'll come to that later anyways..)So, i just stuck with Revathy.

Now, i HAVE to describe this cottage for it is one of the best places I have stayed in. It was a 2-storeyed building. The ground floor had the Hall opening off into a dining room with matching table and sofas and cushions. There was a TV also much to our delight. A stircase curved to the top where there were 2 bed-rooms, each with an attached bathroom. The bathroom was exquisite, with towels and a screen and shower cap and soap, everything in place. THere was no A/C, though.. But we didnt need an A/C for it was cold already...
We were asked to freshen up and reach the dining hall in 30 minutes.. I couldnt wait to use the bathroom and the loo (how typical of me :)).. but i restrained myself..coz, one strict rule was that NOBODY MUST BE LATE for the sessions. for every 5 minutes that you get delayed, you'll have to pay an extra sum of 100 bucks..

as soon as we reached the dining hall, we were given a cup of tea/coffee (I chose coffee, obviously...) with some cookies. Then we were shown into a conference room off the dining hall where we were going to have our classes.Our instructor was a very sweet middle aged lady called Usha. Our first session was introducing each other.
The chairs were arranged in a circle and we had to throw a ball to some random person in the team. the guy who gets the ball stands up and introduces himseld. When my turn came, I said that i luv 'Strings' and i read a lot of horror stories.. From tha point onwards, I was referred to as the 'horror' gal :) :)... after that, among our team of 25 itself, we were split into 3 sub-teams of 8,8 and 7. My team had 7 ppl and we named my team as 'Phoenix'. Each team had to then come up with an intro about the members of the other teams (remember each person introduced himself before)... obviously, we couldnt remember lots of names.. but it was fun.. at the end of the day, all of us knew most of the names in the entire team...

Then came the most interesting part-DINNER. Dinner was a very elaborate affair. Starters consisted of : pasta, papdi chaat and soup. The menu was consisted of Roti, Kulcha, Paneer butter masala, some aalu thing, one more curry that I dont remember, white rice, Veg biriyani and curd.Then came the desserts - Gulab Jamun with vanilla ice cream and some souffe which was yummy......

After a heavy dinner we went back to our rooms. I remained awake chatting with my temporary roomies for an hour or so. The discussion ranged from the pays offered by different It companies to sexual harrasment to how gr8 Revathy's dad is to Nandhini's fiance... Then we went to bed and i slept like a log..


Look out for Go+ - Day2... This is enough for one reading, i guess :) :)

How I became friends with some of my closest pals..

All of us have two or three very close friends..people on whom we can depend upon for anything, people with whom we would never want to lose touch..... How does this friendship develop for different people?

For me, all my close friends were people whom I didnt think too much of, on first sight..
Before that, I have to mention that I'm a person who has these very strong first impressions, even though most of the time these impressions are totally out of league and makes no sense whatsoever.. but I still have them..


1) Ashu - A very colorful and bubbly personality.. She is a person with whom I can find absolutely no flaws.. In fact, I have tried to simulate her in several aspects... A very friendly person, who would do anything for her friends.. when I say anything, I mean absolutely anything.. My parents just adore her coz she is sooo informal and friendly when she comes home... She has loads of friends with whom she still is in touch She was a person who helped me out of some of my difficult times in life... She is a great friend..
i still remember the first time I met her in college... she was sitting in the row before me in the audi for the induction and somebody introduced me to her.. I thought "Uph.. this female looks like a jerk... not my type....".. I got this distinct impression of a very dominating, high-handed person.. later on everything that happened seemed to only enforce this impression.. I caught her yelling in class for some reason, I thought she was acting too smart..etc etc.. All this was till I got to know her in my third year.. and then she ended up as one of my best friends..!

2) Anu - I would like to call Anu, Ashu and myself as a trio in college.. we were really close by the end of college days... I cant even remember now how I got close with this female... A typical virgo, she is.. she never speaks about her feelings to others... She has a solution for everyting and makes everything look so simple and kool...
Wel, how did i meet her?ironically, I dont remember..... I think it was again at the induction. We were both in the same section in the first year of college... But i wasnt close to her then. All the guys in the wing used to ogle at her coz she is a reeaalll babe..
I think i got close to her in my third year or so, but I dont remember how...... it just happened!!

3) Candy - I dont think Candy knows how close she has become to me... I miss her terribly... This female was also in college with me.But she became my pal only after I finished college and moved in as her roomie in B'lore... She is a classical example of how first impressions never turn out to be right for me.... When I came to B'lore, I didnt know too much about candy... I was in college with her and we had even performed a couple of group dances together, but as a person I didnt know her... and to be frank, she is a baffling character.. she has her own mood swings and she is very unpredictable..Life around Candy is never BORING..!!! :).. I started getting close to her after staying with her for ONE FULL YEAR.. till that, I just couldnt get how to handle her...
But now, I should say that getting close to Candy was one of the best things that happened to me in B'lore.. She is such an adorable person who can make me laugh , feel better when I'm down.. the way she says things make them sound like its no big deal.. The best thing about her is that she just doesnt give a DAMN bout what others think about her.. By others, I mean the people whom she doesnt care about... she does what she thinks is right!!!! and i just luv that characteristic of hers...

Well ppl,.. i'm sure the guys who read this would never have analysed their friendship so much.. its only the gals who do all this self-analysis..well, now y am I bring sexist remarks here??.. just that I thought gals who read this would be able to relate better to what I'm saying an guys mite find it downrite DUMB!!! hehe...