My Day

In this blog, I want to share my typical day with my students and readers.

Day starts at 4:30

I get up at 4:30 am. Of course my Phone alarm wakes me up.

I get ready to go for Badminton. I play badminton from 5:00-6:00 am in an Indoor court at Seethammadhara. I have started playing badminton in 2010. First played in outdoor court in a park. Then moved to Indoor court. Starting from 2012 I have been playing in the morning 5-6 slot in ISN Raju Indoor court for Badminton at Seethammadhara, which has well-maintained wooden floor. Entry is restricted to members and our slot has 6 members who jell well.

On some Sundays we start at 4:30 am, so I get up at 4:00 am. Sunday and holidays are the days I get to stay beyond 6:00 am and enjoy some conversation with team mates. Otherwise I leave court at 6:00 am or a little earlier as my first class starts at 7:00 am.

We play irrespective of weather. We play doubles and only in some rare cases we play singles.

Badminton Court

Coffee with Padmaja

By 6:30 am I have coffee with Padmaja, my wife.

Even having coffee in the Balcony of my house is a blessing in life. When I miss it I realize how simple it is yet how important it is.

View from balcony

I leave home for office by 6:45 am. My drive will take only 10 minutes at the most. Drive is pleasant at this time. I use Honda City mostly and occasionally Honda Brio. So I am in office by 6:55 am.

Morning session

Every day I get to give my knowledge to students, is an opportunity and blessing. There is no better place than my classroom. It is the best and most sacred place for me.

My first class starts at 7:00 am. I start at 7:00 am irrespective of number of students. Some students arrive before me and some after me. I encourage students to come even if they are late as missing a part of class is better than missing whole class.

My second class starts at 8:00 am. It is typically Microsoft.NET course for 2 hours duration.

So I am done with my morning session by 10:00 am. But during summer schedule, my courses go on till 12:00 or 1:00 pm. Also all my corporate training programs are scheduled between 10:00 to 1:00 pm. During those periods I will be occupied with classes till 1:00 pm or beyond.

Classroom

Time to learn

On a typical day, I am ready to learn or prepare course material or help students in fixing their issues etc. by 10:00 am. I generally work till 1:00 pm at office. Learning matters to me a lot. I always have a lot to learn as I work with multiple technologies like Microsoft.Net, Java, Oracle and other web and mobile technologies.

Reading books, blogs and watching videos are my sources of information. I have to apply whatever I read and listen, so I work with my laptop in office to implement whatever I learn. At times things just don’t go in my way. Then I need to spend a lot of time to fix things and understand what went wrong.

So, there are some tough days technically. Sometimes I get stuck with bugs for hours. Patience is the key. I generally don’t use any program in class until I try it on my own. With so many new versions and new tools, you never know when things can go wrong. So I try as many things as I can so that I know the problem well in advance before I discuss the topic in class.

I work with a Laptop connected with an external monitor so that I have two monitors to work with. I use this laptop with pen tablet while recording videos and taking online sessions.

Both my laptop and classroom desktop are from Dell and recently upgraded to Windows 10.

My cabin

Lunch + Nap

I generally have lunch around 1:30 pm. Kids are generally not around except on their holidays. I am not a food lover and not particular about taste.

After my lunch + fruits, I sleep for a while to regain energy. I take a day as two parts and this is the end of part 1 for me. So I sleep for 60 to 120 minutes between 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm.

By 4:30 pm I get ready to go to office after having tea with Padmaja.

I am at office by 4:45 pm to resume my evening sessions.

Evening sessions

Evening classes start at 5:00 pm. I generally have classes one after another till 9:00 pm. There is no break between classes. Students of one batch leave and those of next batch enter. Some who do multiple courses remain seated. I remain in class all through. My mobile remains in my cabin and I don’t get to see any calls or messages. I don’t want to be distracted by my mobile, so I don’t even take it to classroom.

Time to learn again

I come home at 9:15 or so. It is time for dinner. I prefer to watch sports after dinner. My dinner and lunch are always followed by fruits. I have no reservations about fruits. I eat all and love all.

By 10:00 pm, once I am done with dinner I get back to my room where I have a typical desktop with two monitors connected. It is still a Windows 7 machine.

My room at home

It is time to learn again. I generally prefer desktop for coding. With a conventional keyboard and two monitors, my desktop is the best means for coding. My work ends anywhere between 11:30 pm to 12:30 am.

I play music in the background while I write code in the foreground. It shields me from other noises around. I listen to Hindi and Telugu movie songs and a lot of English numbers as well.

Getting ready for next day

I decide the dress, belt and shoes to wear for next day before I go to bed. I also keep my badminton dress and shoes ready as I don’t get time next day morning. But if any ironing is be done, that is done in the morning before I put on the dress. I love to do my work myself. At times I wash my clothes. I was taught by my parents to do my work myself.

I maintain to-do list in my diary and also in my mobile.

Another day comes to an end

By the time I am ready to sleep, I know another day in my life has come to an end. I take each day as a privilege and an opportunity to work. I believe work is worship. I believe all Gods advocated humans to work. I am of the opinion we go to work to make ourselves more valuable.

By the time I go to bed it is beyond 12:00 am. So, many times my day ends the next day.

My Sunday

Sunday starts a little earlier as we start playing by 4:30 am. After completing the game, I generally get time to converse with my batchmates as I don't have to leave by 6:00 am.

I prefer to work in the morning. At times I have classes on Sunday morning. If I have to record videos, my office is ideal place as it is quite calm on Sunday morning.

I prefer shopping in the afternoon. I feel shops are relatively free on Sunday afternoon. Generally the whole family goes together for shopping. There is something to buy for everyone.

Evenings are generally meant for get together of relatives and friends.

We don't prefer going to movie on Sunday. We do watch movies but mostly during weekdays and night shows.

What else????

There are good days, great days and also bad days. I try my best to be balanced on all days.

I love to read as many books as possible. Love to know about successful people and places. I have the responsibility to motivate and encourage students to make the most of their talent and resources. They trust me and I can’t let them down.

I don’t watch TV except for sports and occasionally news. I have no interest in TV serials or reality shows. With 24 x 7 channels, every unnecessary event is a news. I feel I have better things to do rather than watching news. However, I prefer watching news on BBC to other channels. I love all sports. I played Cricket, Football, Badminton, Tennis, and Volleyball. When it comes to watching sports, I love to watch all sports. I enjoy watching athletics a lot – relay is my favourite event in athletics.

I don’t use mobile as much as many others. For me it is a good device but not indispensible. It keeps me in touch with a few good friends I have. I don’t know games like Candy Crush and Angry birds. I never played them and don’t think I will ever see myself wasting time on them.

I am always connected to internet. I use Twitter and Facebook sparingly. I use Dropbox for all my documents.

That’s about me and my typical day.