Friday, June 20, 2008

wake up, son!!

One Early morning a mother went to her sleeping son and woke him up.

MOM : "Wake up, son. It's time to go to school."
SON : "But why, Mama? I don't want to go to school."
MOM : "Give me two reasons why you don't want to go to school."
SON : "One, all the chilldren hate me. Two, all the teachers hate me."
MOM : "Oh! that's not a reason. Come on, you have to go to school."
SON : "Give me two good reasons WHY I *should* go to school?"
MOM : One, you are FIFTY-TWO years old and should understand your responsibilities.
Two, you are the PRINCIPAL of the school.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

airports

Following are the Airports that I have used for boarding/ landing in the last 14 months:

Madras International Airport, Chennai, TamilNadu, India (MAA)
Hindustan International Airport, Bangalore, Karnataka, India (BLR)
Frankfurt International Airport, Frankfurt, Germany (FRA)
George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, TX, USA (IAH)
William P. Hobby Airport, Houston, TX, USA (HOU)
N Kentucky International Airport, Cincinnati, OH, USA (CVG)
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, cleveland, OH, USA (CLE)
Canton Regional Airport, Akron, OH, USA (CAK)
Hartsfield International Airport, Atlanta, GA, USA (ATL)
Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand (BKK)
Incheon International Airport, Seoul, SouthKorea (ICN)
Hong kong International Airport, Hong kong, China (HKG)
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei, Taiwan (TPE)
Bengaluru International Airport, Bengaluru, Karnataka (BLR)
Phuket International Airport, Phuket, Thailand (HKT)

15 airports in 7 countries in 14 months. Hope I am an eligible international traveller.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

yes or no

What do you answer for a 'yes or no' question? you can either answer 'yes' or 'no' or 'don't know'. But how do you decide on the answer? You may say that it depends on the question and your knowledge on it. No matter how much you know about the question or how much you investigate to answer the question, there is 50-50 chance of getting it correct or wrong when you reply 'yes' or 'no'. Hence just answer 'yes' or 'no' whichever you like and sometimes 'don't know'. Definite questions like "Are you in Seoul?" are some exceptions.

Moreover, even if you get into the 50 % chance of getting the correct answer, then there is only 50-50 chance of getting marks (or getting recognized) for your answer. Because, many times wrong answers are appreciated. Hence why at all do you have to think? Just answer 'yes' or 'no' whichever you like and sometimes 'don't know' :)

Furthermore, if you are going to get another chance for your wrong answer, you can try 'yes' first and then 'no' or vice versa. Example, whenever my laptop windows gives a big message with yes and no buttons, I will just click either of them without reading. If at all I had chosen wrong option, I may choose the other one when windows asks me again.

One other thing about yes or no - Usually people shake their head 'up down' for yes and 'right left' for no. But most of the Indians shake their head 'right left' for both yes and no :) There will be some difference in the way so that other Indian could identify if it is yes or no. But other people could not differentiate this causing lot of confusion. Moreover most of the Indians shake their head as they talk.