Summer and Life Cycle

The Bahamian conch salad from the Da Fish Fry

Sri Lanka really does not have these periods. The first time "summer" made some sense or difference to me was 2009. I applied and got selected for my first Google Summer of Code as a student with AbiWord. It was so exciting, and unlike now, I was somewhat new to the open source. Not entirely new, since I had already done some localization work (I had localized Squirrelmail to Sri Lankan Tamil, along with a few of my friends). Also I was an intern at WSO2, a Sri Lankan open source company (which also mentors GSoC students these days at a large scale, as a mentoring organization). Following 2009, I was always involved in GSoC, either as a mentor or a student.

But it was 2012 when I really got to know how does a summer feel like, and was able to differentiate it with other seasons. That was when I came to Portugal for my Erasmus Mundus masters program EMDC. Coming from a hot and humid country, Lisboa's summer was mild to me and it felt comforting.

Europe always had its beauties with seasons. I did not like winter in Portugal particularly as it was too wet. Similarly, I was not a fan of Swedish' dark winters either. However, I miss the snow.

Though I did not experienced seasons beyond sunny days and rainy days, I did have the days - weekdays and weekends. During the school days, we still had tuition classes during the weekends. That effectively made us busy almost 7 days a week. So there was no real weekend till I joined the university. However, at the latter years of my bachelors, I had classes even on Saturdays, leaving us with only Sunday as a free day.  When I joined the industry, I really had the weekends off.

Crystal clear water of Nassau

Same was true with my masters too. However, with the increased autonomy I have with my PhD in Portugal, I am actually free to choose my own timing. I tend to work in weekends when I want to. On the other hand, if I decide to go for a movie, I can always go ahead any time instead of waiting for the weekend. When I had paper submission deadlines approaching, I tend to work 7 days a week, and love it!

Atlanta's summer is hot and humid. Just like Sri Lanka. When you come out of office, you will feel like entering a sauna. Also the rainy days! Coming from Portugal, it felt weird to have thunderstorms in summer. Summers are supposed to be dry. ;)

US has holidays arranged in a strategic way to have them on Mondays or Fridays to allow long weekends. During my short stay here, I have experienced 3 long weekends, if I counted it right. Weekends I often use for buying food or doing some minor fun activities - except for the long weekends - when I can go somewhere farther such as the Bahamas.

I am a proud gypsy student since 2012. It has its positives and negatives. Positives - I got to experience new places and new people, and always make me feel young. Negatives - time wasted in bureaucracies and installation costs (such as buying the basics for the new accommodation).

As I walk on the lanes from my lab in the late evening, I always think of random things. I recall many things - to be worth of blogging down - both technical and non-technical. I end up not writing majority of them. Writer's block, if I may say so. That's why I keep a list of future blog posts!

It is interesting to note that in the recent past my "thinking language" has been shifted to English from Tamil. It is because of my limited reading, writing, and communicating in Tamil in foreign lands. However, I still enjoy my Tamil songs and movies from South India! I like musics and music videos. They always bring back memories from the past - the first time I heard the song! I am sure now I have many good memories from Atlanta as well, with more music and more diverse technical experience.

The rise and the fall of a Facebook star

1. The Hi5 Era
It was early 2006, if I remember correctly. Hi5 was getting popular. It was a social media where each new member is encouraged to invite 5 of their friends to the platform. My friend asked me why did not I accept his invitation. I told him that I had an email account (Yahoo!), which for now was enough for me. He tried his best to convince me that Hi5 was good for sharing photos and chatting. He still failed. I did not even have a digital camera till early 2007 to share the photos. I told him that I would rather email the friends I care about, instead of joining another random platform.

2. Dawn of the Facebook

Later that year, I would join the engineering faculty, and in mid 2007 I joined the department of computer science and engineering as an undergraduate. New social media platforms were getting popular. Everyone had started talking about Facebook. At some point, a clear majority among the 100 of us in the batch had joined Facebook. I was not among them, despite having received an invite from one of my good friends. My reasoning was still valid - I had a very active Gmail account which I used for sharing photos and sharing emails (including cute pictures of cats and jokes, as well as the emails to project mailing lists and class email groups dedicated entirely for friendship and fun).

3. The Entry

In 2008, a lecturer who was teaching us Software Engineering finally managed to get me into Facebook. He asked us to create a Facebook group for his course, where he would initiate group discussions based on the lecture sessions we had. I was not impressed in the beginning by this idea. However, I eventually started to become active in Facebook by the mid of 2008. It felt great when I was able to connect to the friends from different continents. My school friends were distributed across the globe, and receiving messages and updates from them was so encouraging. Apart from the friends I already knew, I also got to know new friends from Facebook itself through mutual friends, and some online communities. My Facebook account was entirely dedicated for fun and friendship by that time.

4. Intern Diaries

I joined WSO2 as an intern in September 2008. The company encouraged everyone to be active in social media, and motivated us to collaborate and communicate in social media, spreading the word about what we do as a team. By early 2009, I had a Facebook account that also contained technology related posts in addition to that of a regular undergraduate that just had funny posts and photos. I even had friend requests from a few customers of the company. My Facebook friend list had grown above 1500 by that time, spreading across the globe. By that time, I knew that my Facebook account was a reasonably valuable asset to me, and losing it or deactivating it was never an option.

5. Professional Gangster

Around the end of 2009, I had become a professional Facebooker. I was aware of the scams of Facebook. I also knew which were the dodgy links and how viral posts were born. I never clicked or shared anything that had a hidden agenda. I carefully avoided politics. My Facebook was still in its golden era. There were even random people asking me questions through Facebook about some of the technology posts I made. As I completed my second Google Summer of Code in 2010, my Facebook had more content intense in technology with links and often content I wrote by myself. I also joined WSO2 as a software engineer later that year.

6. Social Media Pro (alias shameless promoter)

In the latter half of 2011, I was leading the social media engagement of the company and had shared massive amount of promotional material. Later in 2012, I quit my job to continue my higher studies in Europe. I eventually became a frequent traveller, and shared many of my travel stories and photos online, in Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. Facebook became even more important to me, as I used it to connect to my friends back in Sri Lanka. It also helped me get news updates. I basically was logged in Facebook always. Never logged out.

7. Maturity

My Facebook started to age, along with me. :P As we grow older, it also reflects in the social media. The number of fun posts started to decline while more promotional content from companies and photos of babies started to appear more frequently. When I went to China in 2014, I made sure to install and configure the relevant proxy and VPN solutions so that I would not miss the updates when I was away, since Facebook was otherwise inaccessible from China.

8. Facebook Wars

By 2015, I knew how "visionaries" or "thought leaders" and "idols" from Sri Lanka and other countries would manipulate their follower base to get their views across. It was easy for them to sensationalize their view points than merely stating the facts. Sometimes it got annoying to see how a large base of followers fall for trivial tricks and scams. It was easy for the visionaries to provoke an unsuspecting victim for their hidden agenda. Politics - I tried my best to avoid - was not always easy to omit. I had to engage in multiple occasions, when it appeared in my feed. I started to give my voice for whatever I felt was right.

9. Getting Intense

There were some failed politicians in Sri Lanka (as well as globally) starting to use social media to spread racism in order to regain the grounds. They did not have a really huge follower base. But they did have support from some "social media stars" and "thought leaders". Racism - I loathe in any of its forms. I tried my best to voice against the online bullies and racists, without sensationalizing the view points. In my observation, the IQ or EQ of average Facebook population was very minimal. Though I had a very intelligent LinkedIn, lately I noticed that this had started to happen to my LinkedIn as well. I unfollowed bulks of people who shared irrelevant content on Facebook and LinkedIn. 

10. LinkedIn as another Facebook

I wanted my LinkedIn account to contain professional and educational material. Though not many of my contacts did that, still some irrelevant posts from the 2nd level connections ("connections of connections" or "friends or friends", though I do not usually call LinkedIn connections as "friends", unlike Facebook). Those who solve simple mathematical equations (even with the claim that only  geniuses can solve them), those who claim how a few thousands likes will help them feel happy, help them quit smoking, or even help them recover from cancer, those fake recruiters who would ask you to like or post "interested" in their post so that they can review your profile, those who posts their random cute photos, those who seek prayers in LinkedIn for themselves or their far relatives, and also those who posts photos dictating LinkedIn ≠ Facebook (quite ironically), all I had to unfollow - those who posted them, or those who interact with these posts by commenting or liking. Even if you comment "Please do not post this", it appears on your followers' feed. So somehow I managed to keep my LinkedIn clean.

11. Unfollow Marathon

However, things were different in Facebook. I did like to get updates - random updates - from Facebook. I liked political posts - but not the way they appear sensationalized. I unfollowed around 500 racists and those who simply posted spam during my almost decade long stay in Facebook. However, racists and Facebook thought leaders managed to spread their view by commenting on others' profiles. Same story with those who posted annoying posts. I realized I was spending more time managing Facebook, which was not effective and worse - counter-productive. The social media is made in a way that it promotes viral content, regardless of its lack of quality.

12. Demise of a Facebook Star
One of my close friends had deactivated his Facebook, citing similar reasons. I decided to finally deactivate my Facebook account. After 5.5 years, I did not fail to notice that the Facebook deactivate and permanent delete options remain the same, with no change in display or user experience, regardless of tens of major reformations of Facebook itself.

13. Final Good bye

I re-assigned the ownership of the Facebook groups I had created to those I trusted as suitable candidates. I also sent my contact details to my Facebook friends, who would lose contact with me otherwise. By mid-December, I deactivated my account, and kept it deactivated for 2 months successfully, without ever feeling the need to go back. I did re-activate it once in a while to send some quick messages, as required. However, I was simply able to break the habit of social media. I rather increased my updates to my blog and twitter. If in the future, a better social media platform appears, I will give it one more try. 

14. The End

This marks the end of my 8 year long Facebook life - the rise and the fall of my Facebook kingdom. :P My friend who initially deactivated his account had it reactivated though. However, looking back, I felt like I had traveled in a circle. I feel like I have come back to the period of 2006, after 10 years. I do not really feel I am missing something by not having an account in the most popular social media platform of the world. It is not to boost that I am saving more time or have become more productive. We always find ways to waste some of our time in the Internet, regardless of the existence of Facebook. Just I find that my time with Facebook has come to an end. I will continue writing in the other platforms, such as this blog and my Twitter account.

[31/May/2006 - 06/Sep/2010]

[28th June, 2011 - Tuesday; BMICH, Colombo, Sri Lanka] 

So we had our academic convocation. It was really pleasant to recall the university life, and being awarded the Bachelor of the Science of Engineering, majoring in Computer Science & Engineering with a first class, with a GPA of 3.80 for the total of 4.20. Nothing much to complain.

I am really thankful to the teachers and lecturers who were/are always with me. Time - Today's investment; tomorrow's insurance. My special thanks should go to my Advanced level teachers, the ones who taught me Math, Physics, and Chemistry.

General Convocation - It reminded me my school prize givings.. :) Now I miss the University of Moratuwa, as I missed Royal College.. :( Thank you my country for giving me the opportunity to study at THE BEST places, always.. ♥ I am proud of you.. :) //End-of-yet-another-chapter

as an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa.. (1)

This post is part of the Series: As an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa.

 

Level 1

First semester of the first year didn't go well, if I consider the grades. First difference I saw from the advanced level was, in advanced level I knew questions as well as the answers when I sat for the exams. In undergraduate studies, for some modules, I felt like I even didn't know the questions ;) I did score well, and was in the GPA of 3.96 (out of 4.20), when we got the results for 5 modules out of 6, with all A+, A's and A-. But a single module was powerful enough to change the result. It was a C- for Thermodynamics. This immediately dragged my GPA from 3.96 to 3.58. After all, it was just a 2 credit module (13 total credits for the semester). Amazingly almost all the friends were with A+'s and A's for the very same module! I later learned that most of the questions were from the past papers, where unfortunately I didn't even have a single paper for that module.

Lessons learned

--------------------------

• Unlike in school, a lower grade for a single module can be poisonous - In school, I happened to get lower marks to not-so-interesting modules like Social studies, which never made any impact to my rank, as Mathematics and other *good* subjects always saved me with 90+'s. :)

• GPA system is weird. It starts with a big interval, and all of a sudden, even for a difference of 5 marks the grade falls like hell. C has a GPA of 2.0 where C- has 1.5, just with 5 marks interval for C and C-, where A+ has 4.20, and A got 4.0 where the interval is [85,100] and [75,85).
• Past papers are life-savers. I didn't know the fact that past papers are stored in the library for the students to get photocopies. I got to know this only at my level 2. I could have gone to the library and got some past papers for that module.
• Getting two A's is better than getting an A+ and an A-, as far as GPA's are considered.
• We can score maximum of C, in a second attempt. I always thought of upgrading my C- of thermodynamics to C, but never did that as I hate repetition!
• Everything works in this world according to the theory of relativity. If we do average in an easy exam, that will essentially make our score to the bare minimum. Here *easy exam* means, an exam where many people get high score.
• You can't just omit/ignore a single module. No this-is-my-module sentiments.
• The first year was an important year in our undergraduate life. After the first two semesters, we will be allowed to choose our preferred major. But stuff doesn't work like that. Everyone prefers some departments, hence it goes with the GPA. That made first year the most competitive year of all! We are batch 06'. With Batch 09' it was changed to First semester. That means, after first semester students will be divided into the departments.

As I scored lower for the first semester, I had to work smart (please note the usage of the phrase *work smart* instead of *work hard*. I worked hard in the first semester. No doubt.) for the second semester to avoid ending up with a department that I do not like much. Getting lower grade means, you will lose the freedom to choose. That's it!

To be on the safer side, I tried to attend the 'kuppi' classes (whatever the media it is), though personally I hate those type of *classes*. These 'kuppi' classes are classes where senior students explain the particular module in Sinhala/Tamil medium. Mostly they will explain the concepts or do some past paper questions. I don't like huge crowds, but it was a good memory to recall. I DID feel some of those classes were just wasting my time. ;) This time, I paid attention to the past papers. With all A+'s, A's, and A-'s, I was able to get 4.00 for the second semester, which I consider a reasonable success.

as an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa.. (2)

This post is part of the Series: As an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa.

Level 2

I entered the department of Computer Science and Engineering, which we prefer to call CSE, with the GPA of 3.78. And this is how the family of 06CSE was formed at 2007. Most of the time in level 2, Electronics (EN) and Electrical (EE) departments share the same modules with us (CS). That means, we had to learn EE and EN modules, in addition to CS modules. For the L2S1 too, a 5 credit module from the Electrical department spoilt my grade, and reduced it from 4.01 to 3.66 as a single module. This time the lessons were, 5 credit modules are damn powerful, and respect the other department modules too. :D Second semester went smooth, and ended with a GPA of 3.81. 

Mentoring

Mentoring was an interesting concept introduced to us in Level 2. We were divided into groups and each group is sent to a company for their mentoring session. We were assigned a mentor from the company. I got my mentoring from Virtusa along with 9 others from 06CSE. We also had a drama festival and 'CSE ourbounds' - a social outdoor event to welcome the juniors to the department. CSE Outbounds evolved with time, and junior batches had the same event with different names 'CSE Indifference' and 'CSE BeyondWavez' in the following years. I should also mention about the june terms, which carry very low work load than the semester, and come with 2 or 3 modules. In the meantime, we were able to contribute to the localization efforts named as 'Lakapps' which are made with the support of Lakapps and the department. It was an interesting learning experience for us.

Level 3

Level 3 has only one semester and it became the semester with the highest workload of all the 7 semesters of our undergraduate life. We no more had any modules from the other departments as compulsory modules. In level 3 and 4, we are given options. That means, not all the modules are compulsory. Level 3 had 10 modules. I always do a comparison of Level 3 with O/L and Level 4 with A/L due to this subject count and the workload. I always feel, I could have omitted the Embedded Systems module after receiving a C+ for that, making my Semester GPA 3.62. 

Internship

By end of the semester, we were given the option to apply for our preferred companies for the internship. I applied for WSO2, Virtusa, and Duo Software, and got selected for all the three companies. As WSO2 matched my personal interests more, I finally decided to join WSO2 as an intern. I consider choosing WSO2 for my internship was the cleverest decision I took as an undergraduate. Life at WSO2 as an intern made a strong impact in me, which also encouraged me more into open source technologies, that lead me into participating and getting selected to Google Summer of Code in 2009 with AbiWord and 2010 with OGSA-DAI of OMII-UK. At the end of our internship, 4 WSO2 interns formed a group and picked a project "Mashup Generator for XBaya" with the title "Mooshabaya", where another group of four WSO2 interns formed a group "Bissa".  After completing the final year, the team Mooshabaya joined WSO2 as software engineers.

as an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa.. (3)

This post is part of the Series: As an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa.

Level 4

Level 4 has become the most interesting and successful academic year (With GPA's 3.74 and 4.04 for semester 1 and 2) among the four. We were busy with final year project and a huge array of assignments, still managed everything efficiently. Our Database paper and Final year project (Mooshabaya) paper got selected to conferences held in Paris and Bangalore respectively. Somehow the final year turned me into an 'owl', which made me work more on mid-nights. Our final year was mostly group-oriented too. We have spent much of the time as the final year project group. Fortnight reports, monthly presentations and meetings. We were spending most of the time in the research lab. 

During the level 4, I was able to work as an instructor for the level 2 operating systems module, which reminded me 2007 more often. I tried to get some students into the AbiWord projects for their Programming Project module. It should be noted, that during our batch, we were just producing dummy projects most of the time, for the level 3 programming project module, which was turned as an open source module from 07CSE onwards, which is really an interesting change. I am pretty sure, that would have motivated my juniors more into open source and open source programs like Google Summer of Code. We also faced the mile stone 25 years anniversary of CSE, during our final year. As the batch, we organized IT seminars allover the island to mark the anniversary. It is an interesting fact that CSE has started on 29th of January, 1985 (exactly two years before my birthday.. :D)

The final days of the final semester were full of interviews. We all secured our jobs even before we completed the final semester. Interestingly we joined WSO2 on 13th of September, a Programmer Day. Programmer Day is the 256th day of every year, September 13th or the 12th on leap years. Our work started with a remarkable event marking the 5th year anniversary of WSO2, and it was September 17th, 2010.

As an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa..

With the release of the finalized results, I feel the urge to post a short summary of my life as an undergraduate for the 4+ years (2006 - 2010) at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Moratuwa. In short, I see my undergraduate studies a successful one, which essentially makes the year 2010, the most remarkable year of my life so far. An A+ for the final year project which happens to be the 10 credit module, making the final semester GPA to be 4.04, as well as the final overall GPA of 3.80 which puts me into the first class became the highlights of the year. The blog post series "As an undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa.." provides a summary of my undergraduate life for the past 4 years.

Tasty New Google Summer of Code Stats

Google Open Source Blog: Tasty New Google Summer of Code Stats shows the remarkable achievement of the students participated in the Google Summer of Codes. University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka becomes the first in the list having 22 successful students over the total of 999 students worldwide. It should also be noted that University of Moratuwa was the first the last year with 24 successful students where the total was 1126, where we topped the list with 22 for the first time in 2007. Thus making this the 3rd year of success.

Top 10 Schools in 2009 and the 2005 - 2009 total value by # of Accepted Students are listed in the Google Open Source Blog. It should also be noted that, even when considering the total number of accepted students for the Google Summer of Codes(GSoC) for the years 2005 to 2009 University of Moratuwa tops the list with 79 students, followed by University of Campinas / UNICAMP, Brazil (37 students), and University of Toronto, Canada (34 Students).

This result shows the strong impact of Free and Open Source Software among the undergraduates of Universtiy of Moratuwa. Department of Computer Science and Engineering - University of Moratuwa and WSO2 - The Open Source SOA Company should be mentioned here, for encouraging the undergraduates to participate in Open Source Projects.

Read more here:

[1] University of Moratuwa – Top University Worldwide for Free and Open   Source Software (FOSS) Development

[2] Daily News - University of Moratuwa becomes World's Hot Spot