A match well played

Still recovering from staying up all night to watch the match SL Vs NZ, which started at midnight Aussie time. And having to watch the World cup semi-finals on live streaming on the internet (sitting in front of the laptop and cramming our necks) because these people here don't think it worthwhile to telecast on tv!!! outrageous! But of course the Aus Vs SA match was on tv because it was Australia that was playing!

Anyway, we won!! it was all worth it!

Mahela was excellent. At first I was quite annoyed with him for defending each and every ball without hitting it with the bat and getting some runs. But of course they are the experts, and what do I know? He didn't play hard because he knew it's not the way to go. But later on he gradually hit the accelerator and ended up with a century (not out) and a strike rate over a hundred. That was literally a 'captain's knock'!

And all credit goes to Upul Tharanga, and for the team to have kept their faith in him. Comforting to know there's young talent emerging to replace the senior players in the near future.

Next...against the ruthless Aussies in the finals on Saturday...hope...hope...hope!!!!

The art of original thinking

Our society tries to define a person's intelligence by the level of his/her formal education. but does it really reflect the person's intelligence? I think not. Personally I'm beginning to think that 'formal' education actually restricts our mind frame, teaching us what some other person found out and telling us to carry on from where that earlier person left...in his path of thinking. Well, it is sort of trying not to re-invent the wheel, but at the same time it also restricts our minds to think along the lines of someone else, and does not encourage 'original thinking'.

Perhaps it's not just the teaching, but maybe the way we are taught. As students we are taught things and not encouraged to ask 'why?' and 'how?', and pretty soon we get used to 'hanging on to every word' the teacher say like in blind faith.

After reading Sir Richard Branson's autobiography I was wondering about this factor. He wasn't an A-grade student, not even close! But he understood that the authoritarian rules in his school were restricting the freedom of students, and wrote down a list of suggestions to the administration of the school at the age of 15. He challenged the ideas of most 'conservative' businessmen, and went on to break a lot of 'defined' rules. Somewhere in his book he mentions about the degrees and educational programmes on "entrepreneurship", well..it shouldn't be about sitting down and studying the subject but throwing away the books and getting down to work!

On the same note I was interested in finding out how Einstein coped with this. So I just finished skimming through a book called "The unexpected Einstein", trying to get some insight into this. Einstein excelled at maths in school, but was terrible in other subjects. But the thing to note is that he wasn't interested in what the teachers taught him, (and so he wasn't a favourite with his teachers at all) but he was interested in the subject and he learned it in his way. He didn't get bogged down with the 'formal teachings'. Once during a chemistry laboratory session, he had thrown away the teachers instructions and tried to do the experiment - his way, which had ended blowing up in his face. And later he dropped out of school by the age of 16.

Another example Martin Wickramasinghe, one of the most prolific writers of all time in Sri Lanka, dropped out of school early. But in my opinion Sri Lanka has't been able to produce a better author at handling the Sinhala language since. It's not just the language but his insight into the society and the people is simply amazing. In one of his books 'Yuganthaya' if I'm not mistaken he writes about how this character, a surgeon carries out a delicate and complex surgery on a patient. You can't stop but wonder at the intricate details of the human anatomy and the medical procedures he goes on to explain. How the hell did he get such a knowledge? (There weren't any Internet or the Discovery channel in his time!)

I remember our music maestro Premasiri Kemadasa once saying (by the way that's another example) "when you play music in a class room and ask the children to clap to the rhythm, if there's one child who doesn't seem to be clapping to the correct beat, take interest! he might be seeing something that all the others don't".

All in all it's difficult to define and mould a person's intellectual capacity and original thinking. But the guideline "not to believe in anything anybody says without giving it proper consideration" as preached by Lord Buddha in the Kalama sutra seems to be absolutely correct!
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"Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ..... when you yourselves know: 'These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them."

Murder she wrote

I was reading a couple of Agatha Christie novels during last week. Her novels are among the best sellers of all time, second only to Shakespeare. She's known as "Queen of crime" for her something like 65 crime novels.

All her stories frame work is more or less the same. A death takes place, turns out to be a murder, some detectives or some amateurs get involved in investigating the crime. The most part of the story is on the investigation, the suspicion shifts from person to person, and makes the reader guess all sorts of possibilites and suspects, but at the end the murderer turns out to be either someone you never thought of suspecting, or someone you considered earlier but ruled out at one point. I'm sure I've read at least a dozen of her books and still I've never been able to make the correct guess!! (better luck next time!..maybe)

It's funny that even though the framework is the same for all stories, no two stories are alike, every story is very unique, so instead of getting bored after reading a couple of books, you get kind of addicted to her mysteries. Reading her book is like solving a puzzle or mystery, it keeps you guessing all throughout.

Most of her stories are based in UK, but there are quite a significant number of stories based in other countries like Egypt, Iraq etc. each one giving a touch of its culture.

End of an era..

Brian Lara, who created a sensation in West Indies cricket retired after a successful career which spanned almost two decades.

It's a bit sad that towards the end of his career, he had to become more like a one-man team for his country.

But in the international cricket arena, he will always be remembered as a legend who brought life to the game of cricket.

An interesting blog

We found this very entertaining blog

http://www.ranjitfernandosucks.blogspot.com/

so thought I should spread the word... :)

Big deal!!!!

We lost the match against Australia, which was not a very big surprise, but the surprise was that the SL team decided to rest two of their best bowlers, and that's excluding Malinga who's got an injury.

Well, I agree that it was a bit of a surprise, bit too sudden and made me go like "huh?...what?!....why?... ehhh ........ hmmm ...... blank!" But once the news had time to digest, I don't think there's anything really wrong with that move, it's not illegal or anything!! After all that's why there are reserve players in a team.

But what I can't understand is why everybody is so wound up about it. It's understandable that it's a bit of a shock (at first), but to go to the extent of suggesting that match fixing can be involved is taking it waaaaay too far!

Ponting has been complaining too, but then again he has been complaining about practically everything since the tournament started.

And guess who had joined the list now, the captain of Ireland, preparing for the next match with SL "Every team we've played against has put their full-strength side against us, which is a credit to the way we've played our cricket in this tournament."

!!!!!!!!

Handy game

Click to enlarge


Good idea to keep a printout of this one whenever you are attending a seminar or presentation,
in case you get bored.. :)

Kangaroo Island

Admiral's Arch


Remarkable Rocks


Seal bay


Last weekend was a very long weekend as it was Easter, with Friday being "good friday" and Monday also a holiday for some unknown reason. So we went on a trip to Kangaroo Island, which is the 3rd largest island off the coast of Australia. We left home Saturday afternoon and came back just before Monday noon.

Kangaroo Island is off the coast of Southern Australia which is around 100km from Adelaide. The island is separated from the mainland by a 13km stretch of water which is the southern ocean. Access to the island is by ferry which is a huge one which can carry couple of dozens of vehicles as well as passengers. The sea is usually very calm around this area so the ferry ride is generally smooth.

We arrived in Kangaroo island just after sunset on Saturday and we checked into the small hotel, which is a kind of hostel, great for backpackers and travellers. Then we had a chance to walk around and meet up with some penguins who had come upto the shore from the seas as night fell. The island is a far cry from the city life, and nights are pretty much dark as there's not many lights around. And for this reason the night sky looked simply magnificent! I had always been an admirer of the night sky and had never seen it so full of stars, it was simply breathtaking!

The next day we went around the island in a tour coach (bus). The island is quite big ~150km long and ~50km wide. Our coach driver who was also our tour guide talked to us throughout the whole journey (from 9:30 am till around 6:30 pm) and flooded us with information. It was really enjoyable.

The highlights of the tour were Seal bay (full of Australian seals sleeping in the sun), Remarkable rocks (a few big unusual looking rocks on a pure Granite base), Admirals arch (an arch in the rocks near the sea), New Zealand fur seals (again a bunch of noisy big fellows), and a small farm where we had a delicious lunch!

By the time we got back to the hotel we were exhausted. But it was simply great! The island is very much self-sufficient. There are people living in the island something like 4500. Most of them working on farms, it's more like a step back in time, with large areas of land with a farmer's small house in the middle, cattle grazing, flocks of sheep just idling around and of course kangaroos hopping all over the place. (we almost ran into kangaroos jumping across the roads, two times). The manager of the hotel that we stayed in told us that his nearest neighbour is 1km away, and that he often finds kangaroos peeping in through his windows at night.

We came back in the ferry Monday morning. It was a great experience! I could recommed this place to anyone without a doubt. It seems one of the last unspoilt places on earth.

Sir Richard Branson

Finished reading "Losing my virginity" the autobiography of Sir Richard Branson. WOW!!

Once you start reading the book you find it very difficult to put down, it's always very exciting, funny and very much out-of the box.

To sum it up, he was a normal boy performing quite badly at school, and looking for ways to make money and to improve things. Starting from scratch, he is now the owner of the Virgin group of companies which has over 200 companies under its wing. From Virgin airlines, Virgin rail, Virgin mobile, Virgin Vie (cosmetics) down to Virgin Cola (at present he's supposed to be working on "Virgin Galactic" - space travel !?!) . "Virgin" is considered to be the strongest brand name in use.

His approach to both business and life is very bold. His attempts to fly around the world in a balloon and cross the Atlantic in a speed boat etc. earned him a personality of his own.

The book is fun as fun can be, with a lot of business pranks and challenges to overcome. This is one book that I would recommend to anyone, whether you are business minded or not, it doesn't matter, it's all about guts and glory! Nothing much technical, no it doesn't talk much about balance sheets, the financial accounts and the technical stuff. As he himself mentions in the introduction, "Some people say that my vision for Virgin breaks all the rules and is too widely kaleidescopic; others say that Virgin is set to become one of the leading brand names of the next century; others analyse it down to the last degree and then write academic papers on it. As for me, I just pick up the phone and get on with it".

Mr. Bean is Back!

Mr. Bean is upto his old mischief again. And this time he has won a lottery ticket prize - a trip to the south of France, Cannes. All he has to do is get down from the train in Paris, take a taxi to the next train station and take the express train direct to Cannes. It's simple really!

But leave it to Mr. Bean to complicate life's most simple things and get himself in a real jumble! And knowing just one French word "Oui" meaning 'yes' doesn't help things at all!

The film was simply hillarious! It's a good one to just go have a good laugh at, because this just might be the last Mr. Bean movie to come out. Rowan Atkinson has mentioned that he had done all experiments with Mr Bean so that it might be the time to call it off.