The query runs

My early days in NCR are like early days of GIKI.. Too much assignments with no knowledge of what to do and how to do what we think we have to do.. The day we got our laptops , we were assigned some 14 web based courses without enough information on "HOW TO DO THEM".. much of the time (in hours) was spent in "how to learn" instead of "learning".. and there were some other BIG delays (again in hours) which were caused by "OH! how to set up things on this laptop" .."I am having some difficulties in installing the Easy SET UP CDs".. "Do we have to study the courses told by the HR guy or the courses recommended by the NCR University" , "Err.!!! I passed the course test but my course status is still the same"... so in the start things were really messed up.. Now , things are going on a good track , still there is a problem of "OK... i know how to write this SQL statement, but does any one here know how to run the program that runs it..and how do i start the database server on my PC"..there are so many things/tools which we have to use for our learning but we are not very clear on how to use them and it is expected from us that we will not be needing any time to learn the these tools ..and if an instructor uses a software tool in a flashy speed then we are supposed to learn all the configurations and names etc. that he changes in some microseconds..

Anyway, the training is going good.. The teacher is great...only problem is that he says that we are not supposed to believe in every thing that he says..as he can be wrong in telling us many things.. so we are roughly getting the idea as to what is important and what is not by getting the idea of our instructor's amount of knowledge about it. but then there are times when we have to hear "ok.. now this topic is really important but i am skipping it for you people"... argh!!!!!..

The training is not without regular evaluation. We had a test two days ago and then we had a test yesterday..

FIRST TEST

The first test was to write an SQL query.. We had to do it in teams (not of our choice).. I was grouped with the only bearded guy of the batch who bluntly says that he doesnt know how to write the basic SQL commands.. .. The time provided to write down the given query was spent in understanding how to open the software required to run the query , how to run the server for it , understanding the reasons of getting the USER HAS NO ACCESS PERMISSIONS TO USE THE DATABASE error and searching the right table in the database that could give us the revenue generated by the customers...arghh!! We had to find the coulumns that could give us the revenue and we were not sure wether to multiply the product id with its price or the order number with the discounted price...Me and the bearded guy aka Naveed had a tough time together as we started fighting each other initially .. the fight ended when i told him to do things individually.... :). The marks that we got at the end of the test were only the grace marks.. as we were not able to run the query till the end.

SECOND TEST

We had the second test yesterday. Me and the bearded guy , Naveed "had to" team up again..and this time things went great.. We did ok in the verbal testing section..and later My little practice in SQL along with Naveed's efficient searching of the functions used in the end part of the query saved the day ... It was really fun.. Both of us couldnt really believe that we had really executed a query completely written by us... The test was annouced a few days ago and we were not afraid of the test as we were both sure that we will fail it..but in the end the query executed perefectly and not only that it gave the required output , we were also able to give its justification .. The test has given me confidence and it has also made me to realize the importance of team work.

with time i am learning things....and i hope i will do great in NCR.. people seem good.....The daily ranking of all the people in the batch is shown in the class daily and it gives me a real hope.. i am improving... :)

Life is tough but seems under control

Well.. even though there is a laptop , there are two very important requirements that go along with it to be a regular blogger: Free time and peace of mind...am not having any of these two these days.. so my chronicles from 23rd Dec continue in an integerated from follow :

24th Dec Saturday

I went to Giki to attend the alumni reunion. was accompanied by OC , my Final year project partner who is currently doing an MS leading to PHD degree from Sydney , University of New South WAles..

I had a good time in Giki. The new rector seems to be a good person and it seems that finally someone caring has taken the high post at Giki.. Giki is still the same old peaceful place that made me fall in love with it years ago..

25th Dec Sunday.

Laziness prevailed the whole day. I went to see Champ , Javaid , a batch mate who is suffering from TB. spent the whole afternoon with him . Later i took Vix , who had come to champs place to see him, to Nomi's place as they had to go to Amir Farooq's Marriage. It was really fun finding the way to F11 from G-10 . I had to do some heavy reading on this weekend but it ended too quickly.

26th Dec (Mnday) till 29th Dec (Thursday)

The days pass very quickly once the working days jump in life..with not much social activities , my main focus remained on learning things in NCR... The training is still going on..I had a real tough time in giving the SQL paper.. and now that i have passed it today, i still need a lot of practice work to get it fluent on my fingers. My princess subaru (my car) is giving me real tough as it refuses to do anything at all everymorning. and this makes me make a travel to the office on taxi. On monday and tuesday, i had to leave it near a busy road as it wasnt starting in the morning and i had already availed all my oppertunitites to go late to office. Even now , the princess is there at home and now that i will go home i will try to start it again.. My flatmates have started to call "Suba ru, Sham ru). translation: Shed tears in the morning , Shed tears in the evening.. The name does go with the kind of feelings one gets as the owner of the car.

Islamabad rocked again last night at 3 am. My night was disturbed realy badly . one of the flate mate lost his senses and started shouting..It was a terrible scene..I am not sure what really happened as i didnt get this chance to inquire anything later as my flatemates were asleep while i was coming office this morning.. ..These day I am bumping into a lot of people having psychologic disorders. and what my research tells me is that motst of these cases always have an association with some kind of disturbance in sleep-wake cycle. When human mind doesnt get enough sleep , some harmonal balances occur which make the brain to malfunction.

I too get some strange feelings when my sleep-wake cycle gets disturbed ,these include extreme sensitivity to the weather (i.e extreme coldness in winter , extreme hotness in summers) , pain in knee (coupled with the 'in.travel ' condition ) , and the best one is that i keep laughing the whole day.. yeah! its true. an insufficient sleep really makes my day sometimes.. :)

Life seems to be going somewhat tough

I changed my job and this became a very big change.. which is effecting my personal life a lot.. After serving in PTA for an year , i shifted to NCR to get my self occupied in work all day.. Since they have provided a laptop now, i guess it will be easy for me to update my blogs.. but then again there is a fear that i might not be able to continue my routine things , let alone this rarely practiced blogging activity...

Anyways, i had planned to start my blogging during this switching from PTA to NCR.. could'nt do it on time as internet access and free time is a pre-req to it. Roughly , i planned to write the following things in my daily blogs.

12 Dec 2005 Monday

Today was my last day at PTA. Am going to join NCR on 15th so i am leaving it 2 days earlier so that i may have some rest .. My resignation has been accepted and my notice period of one month has been waived off as well.. Thanks to the Chairman. I also got this chance to meet the Chairman.. This being my 2nd and probably last meeting with him. I told him a few things that are not right in the PTA He listened to me in a manner that i really felt that he was listening, noted some points and the meeting ended. I was happy that i told him ab out all my frustrations that i had in PTA during all the time there.

13 Dec Tuesday.

Well.. It came as no surprise to me that i had to go to PTA again to clear a few things about my job of "type approval" to Noman Jelani, the guy who is going to get the heay burden of all my job responsibilities along with his own.

14 Dec..

had some rest.. did some important stuff that was pending for long..went PTA at night when every one had left and only Taimoor was there helping Umair in making his presentation on "Network Security".

15 and 16th

Today I joined NCR...along with 6 other people.. All software guys...5 guys two girls.. The first day at NCR was great..No work to do.. We all chatted the whole day.. Topics Ranged from Animals to type of people to Jinns..etc...

17th (sat) and 18th(sun)

In my effort to be very efficient , I Read the Teradata Student Manual 1.. Just read it without understanding. Though i know something goes somewhere and is retrieved later at some stage.. spent my whole weekend on it .

19th.. (mon)

Again some free time at NCR.. setup a laptop for another guy..as they had not provided me mine..
Two more guys joined our batch at NCR ..again...both are software guys...

20th (Tue)

Got my own laptop...It was a real problem installing things on it.. really took the whole day.. also started NCR University courses. which are web based courses and one has to do it through flash based menus that involve testing along teaching..

21st and 22nd

Continued with NCR University courses . Most of the time was spent in learning things related to our login , our laptop setup and courses completion procedures.

23rd Dec Friday

Tera data factory started.. Its a instructor led class..which has got humongous amount of knowledge..an amount that a sane human brain can not store normally ..

The workshop ended near 6:30..and by now all the batch has got the idea that things are not going to be too easy..especially for me as the electronics background and no proper software background is really gonna make me put nights efforts...I guess its a bad time for me to start blogging.. but i guess now that I have got a laptop i should make a real proper use of it by enjoying my writings.

What to speak..What to blog!! ??

I feel like a person who is standing on the top of a mountain..silently looking at the massive audience.. full of the desire to speak...full of energy...but unable to decide where to start from? unable to give priority to the mental contents..unable to give the very first push....Its been so long that i am here on the blogosphere but cant post anything cause i dont know where to start from.. no idea at all... completely confused

I want to speak..I want to type..I want to see my ideas , my thoughts turning into words through my typing fingures..but then which idea..?? which thought?? Sharing life becomes too much a trouble sometimes ... I guess i am not ready...I want to share things but i am afraid ..of whom??.. i dont know... or may be i am not afraid at all.. Perhaps i am having the same feeling which people usually have before going on a stage in front of an audience..I guess that is the most accurate representation of my position. I am just hesitating... and the only way i can overcome it , is ...by taking a start..

so here I go..with nothing preplanned in mind..i am sitting here in my office ..The official time is over..had been working on an assignment for quite sometime and now I am free a bit ..

but i am getting confused again.. What to write... Whih topic to chose..Should i go about my job..Should i go about my life..should i go about my friends... What to choose and why to choose that.. but then... since its just a start ..let me start with any random thing...

Let me start with my friends.. People i really cherish in my life.. Let me talk about bodi... Kashif Bhatti...Waqar Nabi.. Momin.. Dasa.. Alvi..Rizwan Pirzada..Saleem Gul.. Farhan..Noman.. Yasir.. My mother ,... Aman.. I start thinking and find that there are so many.. Names keep coming in mind.. they keep popping in..although many of them wont recognize me as their friend anymore as much time has passed since we were last in contact... but they remain in my thoughts as people who i once interacted with...and being somewhat unsocial i happen to have a very small circle of people around me..so my relationships become very precious for me..

I want to write about all my friends...and i know when i will write ..i will miss many.. but i must not let the fear of the effect stop me from writing about them..That is a hesitation that i have to overcome..

but hey!! whats the time?? Its 6:42..I have to catch my Taekwondo class at 7:30 ... joined it to reduce my weight..had been two months..and there is no different in that bulk of mass that I carry above my waistline... i guess all those people who were giving my advices on reducing my diet were right.. I should reduce more...i.e although i already changed it from "overdieting" to "enough dieting"...it needs to go one step below.. and that means a decrease in the revenue that Rahat Bakery is generating from my regular visits.. :)

bye..me getting late for my class..
will write again later..

My details

Ok...now that i am getting some idea of blogging..I am going to start by writing about me.. I have read a lot both in favour and against blogging..and I am going to blog as an experiment to develop my own opinion about it.

My name is Sameer Shaida Durrani..and people have this habit of reading the middle part of my name as 'Shahida' thinking of me as a lady..but let me clear that i am a man..am 25 years old.. am nearly 5'9'' tall...my weight keeps on changing so i dont keep track of my weight very much.. :)

I belong to Peshawar..a city of Pakistan which has been proposed for Nobel Peace Prize.... u can check the link for details.. I have a negative opinion about this proposal but I will prefer to reserve it.. :)

I spent my very early childhood in cities like Islamabad and Karachi but I studied in Peshawar mostly.. ..After 12 years of eduction , i made it to a very good Engineering institute of Paksitan...The Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI).. I did Bachelors in Electronic Engineering from GIKI and i guess I really fell in love with the place during my studies... There are some places which you can never get out of your mind..GIKI is one such place for me.

After my engineering, I did different jobs... but most of the times i was involved with teaching...and I guess in future i will join teaching as a career...

Currently, I am working at Pakistan Telecom Authority as an Assistant Director...I am in Islamabad Headquarter... My duty is to deal with different issues in the Engineering Department of the PTA... My boss wont appreciate it if i write any thing about my job responsibilites...

I think that in order to develop a good understanding of life one should reflect one's idea about it more often... I have started blogging with this thing in mind..I want to refine my idea about different issues in life...and i really appreciate getting corrected by people, only if they use the rarely used tool known as logic..

My first blog ever

This is my first blog ever. so lets see how things go...... am just trying it..............