One of the highlights of my recent career days was getting the chance to publicly show off some of my skills with Autodesk software.


I would rather be pro show off than give any technical details of the presentation now. I was really surprised when Autodesk sent me an invitation to be a guest speaker at the building industry conference called the AEC conference.
I could not remove the grin of my face for two days after that :)

I had information on the turn out earlier, like 300 members. Much before I prepared on the presentation itself I fantasized myself on stage.
This is one of the many dreams I have in life, going on stage and present myself to a group of minds. I wasn’t scared one bit, as you all know I was Santa in school (read the blog below), ha ha.

I had a few project deadlines the same week and I had no time to prepare for the conference. I still knew I could do better.
The previous day I spent a few hours speaking loud and framing monologues. My little one threw a surprised look at me wondering what I was up to. I had to explain to her that I was going to go on stage like her preschool director Mrs. Bourne first hushing everybody and then talking.


June 5’th 2008 was a sizzling, sweet and meaningful day at the stamford ballroom, raffles place,singapore. I had no choice to think much on the attire, I had to wear the sponsor’s polo tee.
we usually spend a whole day in such event. The level of interest, stories and shared learning between the presenters and attendees was really apparent.
Sitting there waiting for my turn I felt propelled to go and get done with it. I had to wait; my turn was in the afternoon.
It felt good on stage, lights flashing and many eyes looking at me. The attendees were well versed with topic I was going to touch upon. I had to do be better than that. I was confident and it went well. I was actually showing them to use a few tools with this software called Autodesk Architecture and how productive they can get. It was over.

Later I realized I was seized by a jittery moment in the first few seconds. I overcame it; I could have cracked a few jokes during the show never the less I was satisfied with the presentation.

I became famous, ha ha; a few customers and co speakers came looking for me to have small conversation on the happenings. I was proud, my dad would have been very proud if he was around.

I am definitely dedicating this to all my near ones.
Thanks for reading.

Merry Christmas !

Santa Season !
Its Christmas time, I am sharing some happy moments of mine that happened during Christmas.
I did my schooling in Holy Angel. My entire formative years were at Holy Angel.
Christmas celebration is big time there.
I have seen the enactment of the birth of Christ every single year there.
The star of Bethlehem slowly the star arrives with the messiah, Melchior, Gaspar and baltasar.
A very interesting manger is setup; angels appear, shepherds joining to see the birth.
The choir heightens the mood by singing silent night holy night.


It was nothing terrific except for the over acting Santa who brought some goodies, jingling bamboo pole with balloons and streamers.
In fact, the arrival of Santa usually brings some excitement among the crowd. He zooms into the campus mounted on a tempo van, not a sleigh unfortunately.
We were not bothered anyways.

It was in my last year at school that I had a chance to become Santa.
Rather it was a fluke that I became one. I cycled to school everyday since my home was near.
The organizer asked me to hang around in the lab to help Santa get dressed that celebration morning.

Bingo! That girl did not turn up. Teacher Rajeshwari whose was in charge chose me as a candidate. I had no clue as to what I am supposed to do. I thought hard and tried to remember what the previous years Santas did.
Santa carried this image of a fat man. I was a thin girl back then, so they tied two pillows on me. Salem was warm that day. Due to my enthusiasm, I totally overlooked the comfort of the dress. I had no choice anyway. From tip to toe, I was in winter ware.
The finale to the whole saga was the mask. I was entirely blind, because he mask was not a custom one or a flexible one. It meant for a bigger faced person. The eye line of the mask was above my brows. I had to tilt like crazy to see anything. Not to mention about the holes for breathing, it was somewhere near my eyes.
I was little overzealous on my pretentious, I jumped more than what usually a Santa does. My teacher sent messages to downplay more than once. Truly speaking I dozed off nearing afternoon. Raksha who was a Santas mate held the jingling bamboo. I used to jerk awake when she banged the pole for some noise. It was a fantastic experience. The school left happy that day, most of them wondering where did Santa come from and who was it etc.

The experience was a rare one, the thought always brought smile onto my face. Hope you enjoyed reading it

My First Post

My first post is about mid autumn festival
中秋节. Along with my daughter and collegues i made a trip to Clarke quay,Singapore.

I got a little more info on this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

I really do not have a philosophical approach as to why i went there etc, i just went there to expose myself to a chinese festival.

During the season you can see a lot of people carrying mooncakes, to share with elders, friends and offices send others to recognize their contacts. Just like the Indians sharing goodies during Deepavali.Nobody brought any for me yet, but i happened to taste a few at office. My daughter insisted on tasting it, i bought for her some from a bakery. Lotus seed flavoured ones. Houyi was an archer an immortal according to the chinese mythology, Refer pic.

Yeah so i went to clarke quay to see the decorated lanterns. the other spot that was decorated was China town. similarly Gelang serai was decorated for Hari raya, and Little India for Deepavali.

Decorations were good, I am not sure of the material used to create those lanterns, definetely not paper because it was drizzling that day. It looked silkish and paparish as well.

Another thing that i came to know that day was that the chinese have only one hundred sir names. The sir names were made as lanterns, my collegue went searching for her's. Surprising to me was the fact that the billion over chinese share the 100 sir names. something that I did not know before.

I'll write about somthing else later.Bye for now.

Maheswari Krishnan.