the first shopping adventure

Last night, I woke up at 4am and didn't get back to sleep until 6am. I planned to wake up at 9 and meet people at 10:30, but in the morning I got a phone call from Ron. "Good morning, Sunshine!" "Hrrrr?" ...it was 10:45, oops. So it turned out that a group of 5 TWers walked out of Diamond, saw a camel, ate at a standup, caught a rickshaw to MG(ish), and bought all sorts of cool stuff... got separated for a while (because you can only get 3 ppl into a rickshaw and we got out at different places) I was in the one with Ron and Becca. It was a lot of fun. We were stuck in traffic for a while and almost had a race!

We stopped in at a classy local clothing store and I ended up buying 3pr pants and 4pr shirts for about $61(including bank fees)... they are absolutely gorgeous. I didn't have enough rupees on me, so I paid by card.

We wandered around... stopped in at a Baskin and Robbins in a mall and got Lychee ice cream and fig and honey ice cream. Yum! Met up with some more people, tried out McDonalds India and KFC India on the main drag, shopped at a thousand tiny stores, waited wile one of our number got fitted at a tailors, and then took a rickshaw back to Diamond with Uchenna and Shane, arriving around 4 or so.

I know how to cross streets now. It's pretty excellent. I feel pretty acclimated.

Rickshaw 1 cost 35 and rickshaw 2 cost 45, neither of which is bad. Another group of people caught one for the same distance for 80, which is far beyond the appropriate price.

In general, you don't bargain for things that aren't rickshaws. many stores have "set price" or "fair price" signs which mean that the price is set pretty fairly and isn't eligible for change.

My fellow TWers seem to spend a lot of time talking about the places they've been (Barcelona, Amsterdam, London) and no time at all talking about code... which worries me a little. I don't talk very much when we're hanging out. I guess part of it is that we don't have many tech projects in common yet, so there's not much ground to discuss?

Later tonight, the plan is to go out and drink. Shots are apparently around $1 or $2 here, so

Books

I want one of each of these and the time to read them and good reasons to use what I learn in them. http://accu.org/index.php?module=bookreviews&func=browse

Or I could try to go back to sleep.

Professionalism

I fell asleep at midnight over my homework, woke up at 4am with more bug bites. Finished and turned in the homework. Searched "professionalism" on twitter.

Some traits of professionalism that I think I've identified:

• Keep a straight face when the client says unfortunate things. Keep a filter on your verbalized thoughts. 
• Plausible deniability
• Create a paper trail for everything
• Stick to "best practices" i.e. don't do the probably-not-bad but also not-what-you're-supposed-to-do things... I think the equivalent would be a professional painter always putting edging tape around the windows even though he thinks he could do the job perfectly without it.
• Don't say frivolous or entertaining things; always think through something before it leaves your mouth and have logic to back it up. I.e. never say anything that makes you sound like you're being flip/don't know what you're talking about.
• Taking pride in your work (I like this one!)
• Basically act like the client is crazy and can't be communicated with in a normal interpersonal way without risking (lawsuit? some kind of consequences) i.e. do not attempt to attain understanding, just go by the rulebook...?
• When when things go wrong, don't make excuses; you should have not let it happen. Explain what happened/why you don't know/why you can't do it, and describe how you plan to fix it, if it can be fixed, or how you plan to figure out if it can be fixed, if it seems like there's a way. If it's irrecoverable, accept responsibility and then IMMEDIATELY STOP TALKING i.e. don't make excuses or ramble on.
• "Professionalism is the adherence to a set of values comprising statutory professional obligations, formally agreed codes of conduct, and the informal expectations of patients and colleagues." http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:professionalism&sa=X&ei=tZ8nTeKOKpGIrAej6NimDA&ved=0CB8QkAE

As an example, I'm pretty sure that this entire post is unprofessional, because I haven't dressed it up in slippery language? Actually I'm not sure why this post is unprofessional, but I'm pretty sure that it is.

Reasons that I care about professionalism:

• My trainer thinks that it's an important skill that I lack, and I agree
• It's good to know how to seem professional because it gets you credibility, clients, and money

Reasons that I don't think much of professionalism:

• I think it's another way of saying that you're adhering to internal/external industry standards but I don't think the standards are ever defined for my industry in a way which I can study and use. (On second thought, they probably are, and I should go find them.)

This is the google query which is my starting point for chasing an answer for the above question http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=professionalism+in+programming+consulting

A professional never:

• uses offensive language to or near the client
• cuts corners (in visible/important places?)
• makes excuses (need more explanation here)
• uses capslocks

Article on professionalism in consulting: http://davidmaister.com/articles/1/3/

This article is long but I've read all of it and frankly I think that it's the thing that has most increase my understanding of professionalism, ever. I think I'll reread it in the morning.

Timesheets and expense reports

I completed my first of each yesterday/today. I'll find out tomorrow whether I did it right, i.e. money will show up in my account.

Dinner took forever

We went to a Chinese/thai-ish place. There were 19 of us, and we arrived there around 8pm... the food took forever to order and prepare... we finally got the check paid a little after 11pm and now it's midnight! The food was good but not too interesting. When the check was split it came to 385 R each, which is about $8.50.

Tomorrow we plan to go shopping!

learning journal format - rough draft

How is training going?

How am I doing?

What did I learn today?

What do I still need to do?

Something that someone else did that was good:

Thing that I did that i shouldn't repeat:

Something that I did that was good:

Treasure hunt

My team won the prize! There was a long fun treasure hunt with several parts. I don't know if I should detail them here, since I think they reuse elements between years... but I want to remember things! I'll just leave out the answers... (This all except the last step took place on the2nd and 4th floors)

1. piece of paper with 3 logic puzzles (my team did poorly and needed help from another team
2. puzzle where you have to trade puzzle pieces with other teams in order to finish
3. I forget what this step was
4. you must find someone and convince him to give you the next clue (by bribing him)
5. you must find someone and sing them a song
6. you must solve a complicated logic puzzle (or get the same answer by an easier way, which we did after a hint)
7. you must solve a crossword puzzle which can only be solved by asking random Indian TWers around the office (no laptops allowed)
8. you are given a picture of something and you have to ask people around the office where it is, then go find it. at it is the prize (guarded by one of the trainers)

Our prize was a game of Monopoly and a dinner voucher for our team. :)

I have many enormous bug bites and it makes me sad. I need longsleeved shirts and bug repellant but when I tried to find the grocery store under N building I could not find it. I'll try again later. One of the trainers says that it is open from 8am to 9pm.

During the treasure hunt, we were very loud and disturbed everyone's work but I think that that was partly the intent? We ran around the office a lot and I think provided much amusement.

Tonight Ron organized dinner- meeting by the atm at 7pm. Go Ron!

Other leadership moment of the day- when Uchenna divided us into teams when we were having trouble with that at the start of the treasure hunt. :)

My team: me, Dani (curly and enthusiastic!), Shane (irish guy), Pavithra (my flatmate)

How is training going: A little slow, but camaraderie is developing. We're still having self-segregation problems with the Chicago people vs everyone else, but they're fading.

How am I doing: I'm ok. I'm looking forward to less games and more work/learning. My feet are owwie and I don't know why. The cell phone we were issued is old pathetic hardware which borders on useless.

What did I learn today?: I'm not really sure. I'm a little tired.

What do I still need to do?: The strengthsfinder test, get dinner with people, finish the Industrial Logic courses (oops)

I don't feel too bad about the Il courses because I know that some of my fellow trainees didn't take them all that seriously or in detail, but I still intend to finish them (my way) before monday.

I asked Wolter how much of the sessions next week I can blog publicly- because blogging is my way of taking notes... and the answer I guess is almost all of it, but that I should run it by him first for the first few days.

Learning journal (how do you do this?)

Here's some advice. As far as I can tell, I'm doing this, but not in a focused way. So I'll try to increase my focus on these points. http://www.audiencedialogue.net/journal.html

In my own words, things to do in a learning journal:

• make notes about what you learned
• what confused you?
• what is interesting / you want to learn more about
• tag entries by topic for easy retrieval later
• my opinion of how well I'm learning what I'm learning and/or how well it's being taught

Friday

My trainer, Wolter, is having me make a goal spreadsheet, and also recommends keeping a "learning journal" which could be incorporated into my blog. Also, I have to take the online test.

Today before lunch I had my first trainer conference. We went over my interview feedback. Positives- enthusiasm. Negatives- not professional. (There's more, but that's the upshot from my perspective.)

Lunch was tasty, and I sat with some of the Indian people and we talked. My flatmate is a very interesting person. I had fun finding out what I was eating. We talked about cheese.

At the icebreaker, I threw the doll into the ceiling twice in a row... :/

Ron is currently calling C beautiful and gorgeous. O.o

My coworkers read my blog, lol. Hi, coworkers.

Reasons I blog:

• keep my parents in the loop so they don't worry
• my friends can check it out and laugh at me over im later
• make sure that my memories of the day form coherently and are preserved in a useful form
• help out future TWUers in the same way that SGHill's blog helped me http://sghill.blogspot.com/search/label/twu

Bangalore survival & enjoyment presentation

Notes from this morning.

Starting on Monday, we have class at the Royal Orchid. It's down the river away from the gates. Be there at 830.

In N block there is a grocery and laundry.

We had breakfast at a place called the cow standup! It was delicious. Masala dosas and south Indian coffee.

The Manipal hospital is nearby.

hundred-feet road- resturaunts

south on 100 is Axis books.

To get to the Bangalore 2 office, take a shuttle from the 2nd week onwards.

Every city in India has an MG road. The one here is very busy and very broken-down. They're trying to build a metro, which will be done in April and which will improve everything very much.

MG road has lots of shops.

The the corner of Brigate and MG is a handicraft shop - gift shop

Blossons bookstore is on a road which is paralell to MG road.

Gungarams is another bookstore on MG road.

Survival tips

dress modestly.

pay by meter. rickshaws constantly try to rip you off.

busses- big, red, safe, 15 rupees.

schedule trips with the trip planner guy at the office.

hot food. hand sanitizer.

avoid ice- it might not be from safe water

carry tp for non-office toilets

train - win. but slow.

Myseore- couple hr drive

Prices:

b1 to b2 not more than 30 rupees

B1 to MG 40 rupees maximum

trips already set:

Rob - kabini he's at B2

Sahana - elephant camp. 29, 30 Jan.

MRP = maximum retail price - printed on most products.

The start charge for auto is 17 Rp. If the meter shows 13, it's an older meter and isn't converted yet.

2 airport taxi companies - easy cabs & meru. call or go to website. Website is unreliable.

----

our schedule today:

Bangalore presentation

break -

Learning and collaborating at TW

lunch

phones

coaching mtg

Shopa surprise at 5pm

While on break, I talked to my flatmate Pah-vee-thra and a dev guy Car-the (thesaurus) and Juan from Brazil... about the batter buckets at the Elephant Standup... and Chicago... and also some other dude...

70-20-10 rule

Google:

70 regular projects

20 own stuff - but could be business relevant

10 not business related

Princeton:

70 learning - real exp

20 - feedback

10 training

me- graph, cartesian coordinates.

know, don't know (2 matrix)

confident novice

thoughtpedia-public.thoughtworks.com is partially out of date. moving to new system.

thoughtworks google groups - you should join thought communities, especially the one related to your role.

reflexive performer

Networking methods:

Yammer network

facebook groups - TW india

thoughtblogs - very useful blogs.thoughtworks.com rss feed...

twitter - check sumeet's groups... use tweetdeck

delicious... sumeet has 1000s of bookmarks

TW google videos, docs, spreadsheets, presentations

slides.google.com/a/thoughtworks.com

videos- what's cooking tag