I got to sleep, and breathe

In one sentence:

I fail at time (and commitment) management terribly (Promised myself to write a new blog post every day, and this is one after an entire week)

As soon as my mom(and the alarm clock) forcibly wakes me up at 5:50 in the morning on a week day, I am slow at the beginning wasting whole 20 minutes brushing my teeth and then I realize I need to accelerate. Then the picture of missing the daily morning Mumbai local train to college comes in front of my eyes, when I miss it, I have to run (practically run) for the other train, dangerously crossing the tracks on Virar station, with my heart pounding and my lungs demanding more air, still determined to get to the I'st class coach. I start thinking where the time can be saved, even if its a minute, saving it becomes worth a lot. Eating breakfast before leaving has to be completed in less than five minutes, it can be reduced even more if I eat half of it. Reaching for a rikshaw now has to be a sprint run as I cannot afford to run about 200 meters for the train. Something, somewhere is wrong. Not just wrong, but ridiculously wrong.

I got to breathe.

It's not that I don't love going to college, I do, I enjoy the journey, the lectures (YES, I like attending lectures, unlike most others!). The only thing I do not like is giving up my sleep. Because of my poor time management skills, I only get to sleep for around 6 hours a day. I had read somewhere that sleeping less than 7-8 hours per day for long periods of time makes your brain work like that of a drunk person, with above the alcohol limit levels. Which means, every day at college, my brain is of a drunk person, giving worst performance I ever can. I feel like someone gifted me the greatest gift if I get to close my eyes for a mere five minutes at around 2 PM in the classroom.

Others see a walking dead in the classroom, every day.

Not just the morning routine, but the day to day activities like completing assignments,  doing my homework, studying for the test, eating, getting back to bed to sleep, all follow a similar pattern. Every day, I try my best to sleep as early as possible, and end up sleeping around midnight.

The above is my daily story and also that of an average office worker who hates his job  :(

The only difference with me is that I do not hate my work, I love Computer Science, programming, attending college and the lectures.

I need to plan my daily routine, which tasks to complete, when to complete them, their deadlines, what is to be done when I miss a deadline and make sure that I do not assign more tasks to myself than I can handle.

I do not want to stay a lazy, unorganized, average human anymore!
Someone needs to learn eating the candies completely, and on time.

Knowing a person is not enough

This is my first post in a series of my personal posts on this blog, giving the blog a more personal side of my life.
This blog has always been a technical one, having technical articles, tutorials etc. From Today, I will share my personal life, my beliefs, thoughts to the world on this medium.

So you think you know a person and you can trust him?
I always felt that you can trust a person if you looked into his/her eyes, dig deeper and get that sense of comfort, understanding, familiarity and trust. But I was wrong. No matter how well you study a person, try to understand his background, his personality inside out, you still don't really understand him, and cannot trust him.
Speaking of trust, your closest friend, colleague can decide to trust you or ignore you completely based on his requirements. Of course that is his decision and he has no obligation when it comes to maintaining the relation. Most of the not-so-real relations are formed on requirements. You make friends based on requirements, and what happens when any one of you or both of you do not need the other? You ignore them?

A real friend, a real relation is no where close to that. A real friend (as they say in movies) would die for you. He would give anything he has for you. But again, finding such a person, a real friend is often a daunting task. You have to take risks and reveal all your secrets to your to-be real friend.

Speaking of me, I've recently had a lot of requirement-based relations. People used me for their benefits, they forgot me when their needs were over. When I talked to some of my friends about this, they suggested that this is how the world works with a kind "Welcome to the World" statement. I refused to accept that, the world is not so bad (I told to myself), I still have some hope left in humanity. It's not that I don't have any real-friends, but they are hard to come by.
I felt extreme negativity, the feeling of someone using you for their needs and benefits is (believe me), extremely saddening. So much so that the person even refuses to recognize me when he/she does not have any needs to fulfill, forget about a greeting.

I need to learn to say no! No to people I know, No to my friends (so-called) in need.
No to sharing candy. :(

Basic tutorial for converting normal photo to passport size with signature

Step 1:
Corp the original image with an image editing tool like paint.

Select the "Rectangular selection tool" and drag across your photograph so that an area, completely covering your face from top to your shirt is selected.

Step 2:
Press CTRL + C (to copy your selection)
Press CTRL + N (to open a new Paint file) (Click Don't Save when prompted)
Press CTRL + V (to paste the selection)

And you will get something like the following image :

Save this image on your drive.


Step 3:
Convert your background to white.
Most of the times, a passport photograph requires a white background.
To get a white background, open the image in an image editing tool like GIMP or Photoshop.
Select the "Magic Wand Tool", click on your background, if it is plain enough, it will select the entire background.
After your background is selected and bordered with dotted lines, press DEL on your keyboard to delete the selection (i.e to make it white)

GIMP is a free and open source tool, unlike photoshop, and can be downloaded here : http://gimp.org
Later, Export your image from GIMP by : File > Export As. Make sure its in JPG format.



Step 4:
Change the dimensions to a passport size.
A normal passport size is 3.5cm (1.38 inches) in width and 4.5cm(1.8 inches) in height.
The signature is 3.5cm(1.38 inches) in width and 1.5cm (1.59 inches) in height.

To change your image into these dimensions:
Open Microsoft Word
Paste the image with CTRL + V
Double-click on it, and change the dimensions at top right. ( " indicate inches, so be sure to enter everything in inches)

After getting the required size in Microsoft Word, copy the re-sized image by Right Click > Copy
Open a new file in Paint and paste the image with CTRL + V


Step 5:
Perform the same above mentioned steps for your signature, from changing its dimensions to change the background color.
Once you get your photograph and the signature in proper dimensions, its now time to join them together.

To join the photo with signature, simply open both images in paint, copy and paste one at a time in a new paint file and arrange them at proper positions.

Your final passport sized photograph should look like this: