Is it worth it or are we wasting our time?

A recent PR Week survey found that 34% of polled employers thought that PR degrees made applicants less attractive than graduates from other disciplines, while 43% said that PR qualifications didn’t make a potential candidate any more or less attractive. (PR Week, 2009) The results of the poll are particularly worrying for a student half way through a graduate-level PR course.
Additionally, a look at the global leadership of Burson-Marsteller highlighted that 8 of its top 16 positions were filled by individuals with degrees from other subject areas, ranging from Accounts, Industrial Relations, Politics and Journalism.
In light of these revelations, I still believe a PR degree is an invaluable tool for building a knowledge base and understanding theories and practical approaches utilized in the working world of public relations. Some employers are devaluing the significance of PR qualifications as they may be threatened by individuals who have formal education in the field. PR graduates set themselves aside from others sporting alternate credentials by showcasing their commitment to the industry and acquisition of basic skills needed to perform productively within the sector.
Personal qualities and contacts are indeed necessary for success within public relations. An individual who is a good communicator, creative and sociable will undoubtedly pave the way to relishing in a PR function. However, in light of the competitive arena for obtaining increasingly limited positions, PR qualifications will help to set aside a graduate from the rest of field, as the individual will be able to demonstrate PR-focused skills and knowledge obtained during the course of studies.
ReferencesBurson-Marsteller, (2009). Global Leadership. [online] Available from: <http://www.burson-marsteller.com/About_Us/Global_Leadership/Pages/default.aspx> [Accessed 30 March 2009].PR Week, (2009). Agency Heads Unconvinced by PR Degrees. [online] Available from: <http://www.prweek.com/uk/search/article/890349/Agency-heads-unconvinced-PR-degrees/> [Accessed 30 March 2009]

Day after day. . .

I wrote this for an assignment, I liked it so putting it up! lemme know what you think.

She sat on the sidewalk watching the other girls play. They were laughing and swinging, taking turns pushing each other. She watched them whisper secrets to each other. She had tried to be friends with them, but they told her they didn't like the way she looked. You had to dress a certain way to be in their group. You're hair had to be cut; and styled everyday. You couldn't have straight, thin, mousy brown hair. If you wore glasses, they had to be the latest styles. Her parents worked hard. They bought her what they could, but she had a younger brother and sister that needed things too. She loved her parents. She didn't blame them. She couldn't figure out why no one thought she was worth playing with. She was nice. She knew how to act right. She would be a loyal friend. She wouldn't treat them the way they treated her. Yet every day she sat and watched everyone play. She had to be her own friend. "Don't worry," she told herself," someday someone will be your friend." She sat on the sidewalk and waited.

Day after day.

Self-Portrait

I am a spot,

on a blank white page,

Do you notice me?

And if you did, would you care?

What if,

I was the rosy pink

of a dreaded slip of paper,

The vine at the window,

leading the way to midnight clandestine,

The inevitable flight,

holding a lover’s gaze,

longingly.

Then would you notice?

Then would you care?

What if,

I was the last match of a smoker,

feeding a cancerous lung,

A hint of Chanel no.5,

on a cheating husband,

The dark brown voice,

Sentencing death.

Then you would notice.

Then you would care.

How do you measure,

an invisible notion?

You try to be a God,

Among Titans,

But instead, you’re just an insect,

among mortals.

But what if,

You were perhaps

A God among insects.

Even if you didn’t notice,

I would.

Just a thought

The one question that seems to follow me around where ever I go is ‘Why do you write?’
My answer usually is, ‘Why does anybody write?’

ADITI

In Hindu mythology, Aditi was the goddess of the boundless sky. Her name means "free from bonds" or "the unfettered" or "Limitless" and the Vedas hint that she was once all-encompassing. She undoubtedly pre-dates them, and was once the goddess of the past and the future, the seven dimensions of the cosmos, the celestial light which permeates all things, and the consciousness of all living things.

Aditi, is called the free one, because in Sanskrit her name means "boundless," and is considered an archaic Mother Goddess, depicted in Hindu, Vedic literature. She represents unlimited space and consciousness, hence infinity or eternity. According to the Rig Veda Aditi is said to be the wife of Kasyapa or of Brahma, and the mother of the Aditya, under whose constraint the universe is made possible; and she also personifies death because she consumes everything. Aditi, therefore, represents a caution already present in the Vedas about contributing the origin of the universe to a personal agent, such as a god. No other consort is mentioned in literature. She is also considered to be the mother of Hari, and other legends have her the mother of Indra. No human physical features of her are drawn, though she is sometimes identified in the guise of a cow. Aditi was believed to be a guardian goddess of prosperity and could free her devotees of problems and clear away obstacles. She does not appear in later Hindu traditions

Rv. I, 98, 10 says that "Aditi is the sky; Aditi is the air; Aditi is all the gods and the five tribes; Aditi is whatever has been born; Aditi is whatever shall be born."

Love you Mumma for choosing such a wonderful name ! J

Musing

Air is the most precious thing to life. We can live without food, and to some extent without water for an extended period of time. . adjust our bodies, our activities, to manage the lack of either, but almost nothing can be compensated for the lack of air. Breath is inevitable, breathing is involuntary. .

We take a breath in, and then carelessly let it leave our bodies; empty, even if for a fraction of a moment, of its vital life force.

Nature intended it to be so, we cannot replenish unless we let go; we cannot gain without losing.

That I have come to believe, is a fact of life that meets us at ever corner.

We do have to give up one thing to gain another; letting go is a part of growing up, growing mature, growing wiser, and finally of growing into something that is beyond what we are.

But, it’s not easy, this letting go business.

We tend to believe that everything we touch is ours to own, everything we create is forever ours.

We hold on to our possessions, making them more important than relationships; we hold on to relationships making them more important than ourselves; we hold on to our egos making them more important than the fact that all of it is but a gift to be treasured for the moment.

Then, like the breath that we take in and let out, it too will dissipate and disappear.

Dilemma

The correct words,
have never been so hard to find.
They're there,
Somewhere locked up in my mind.

Afraid of saying the unspoken,
How should I express myself!?

Should I remain silent?
Or, should I muster up some courage?

In life, when you chose to take neither path, you're not getting anywhere.

Purple-dieee-fieedddd

I cant think- It's too humid (imagine I was missing this when I was In Pune!)

I cant write- Making too many Grammatical errors ( No Athira here in Calcutta to help me out!)

All I can do is imagine, and for the past couple of days I've been trying to visualize different objects in PURPLE. For those who don't know, it is also my 2nd Favourite colour- after Black.

To randomly visualize things and then decide whether you like it in purple or it's original colour is challenging.

So yeah, the only word in my mind right now is- PURPLE !!

Words of Stupidity: Wishing you a lovely lavender day in all hues of purple and blue!

(Told you I cant write for nuts now!) =P

The Oracle Speaks. .

A strange thought just came to me......what if I die tomorrow......how many would miss me? to how many would it be of any consequence? how many would say they knew me.........another feeling........What is the right time to die? Is there such a thing as a right time to die? Would I regret something if I die today.......or would I accept death with contentment.......what about happiness........is death really such a dreadful thing??? why do we cry when someone departs for the other world..........is it not for the empty void in our life........do we really mourn the lost one.....are'nt we showing sadness for the short life of our own joyous moments with the person.....sometimes when we are angry we wish for others to die...but what if they do die!!!! We drive ourselves to insanity thinking about our own evil thoughts!!!!Evil........is death really an arm of the Evil.........isn't there a life after death....call it Heaven or call it the Other World......... isn't death then a blessing of the Good........why then do we condemn those who choose death as an escapade??? Because they aren't strong enough to face the world..........Life is associated with Light and Death with Darkness.............Darkness brings us to the colour Black........where no colour prevails..........it is where nothing exsists....Or is it so?? we do not know what lies in Black... what lurks in the Darkness.......perhaps thats why we fear it...Black is the colour of Power...Isn't Darkness then mysterious........we come from darkness and fade away into it and call the struggle of exsistence Light.......Isn't that a paradox.......for it has always been considered in every religion and mythology that the life before or after this life is always superior......yet we associate it with Darkness......then truth is in Darkness and illusion in Light..........qouting Conrad........"he looked beyond the great light of a cloudless day into the darkness of a world of illussions".........

This is not an assertion........but a quest to find answers.

In the mood for. . .

If Life gives shit to you, say a polite thank you and move on...only goes to show how much more stronger than Life you are.
The cellos, the violins, the guitars will stop pulling the strings of your heart and you will find yourself standing alone in the piano room, staring up at the ceiling; the ceiling will melt into an open blue sky...
And you’ll float upon a distant cloud...
There in the distance you'll hear laughter, you'll chase it, run towards it and find a clear blue pond as pristine as the sky above, and at its corner youll meet a simple little girl. With wild flowing hair, and wide awestruck eyes...dont you know her, dont you know that smile...ofcourse you know the girl staring at you from the pond...and then you blow an autumn leaf, and it floats through the mystic air and scatters the solemn sky with its funny little waves...
And you laugh again, at the cello, the violin and the guitar...

Lucy Poem

It's been a while since I read Victorian Poetry. Being an extremely moody creature I ended up reading my favourite poem- Lucy by William Wordsworth. I know Mrs. Dennison (my Lit. teacher in School) would be very happy to know that I still enjoy and appreciate poetry like the way I did in school.

So, here is my favourite part of the poem (it's a very long poem)-

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh,

The difference to me

BLACK

Most people say Black symbolizes darkness. They say Black means nothing. They say Black is hollow. I say Black is all this and much more. Black is supposed to be colourless, without having no meaning. I disagree. Black encompasses all the colours, it has all light, it hides all beauty, it is the source of all imagination, it is the origin of all ideas. It has the earth, the world, the universe in it. It is the pinnacle Power in its purest and impurest form. It is where everything merges. It is a union of Joy and Sorrow, a juxtaposition of the New and Old, it is a sea of the Vast and the Least. It is all that we are aware of, all that we are not aware of, all that we can know and all that we may not know. Then isn't Black "God". As T.S. Eliot testify - In God right is wrong and wrong is right; love is hatred and hatred is love. And so is it in the case of Black. I said Black is a power. Let me put it this way, Black is "The Ultimate Power". The power to do anything that the heart wishes and the mind commands. Impossibility is the greatest acknowledgement for Black. Then why is Black associated with the Evil? Isn't there some Good in the so called Bad? So doesn't Black become the bearer of Good. Black is beautiful, Black is terrible. In Black there is no outer vision, no sound, no expression. Yet there are feelings, there are emotions - heart rendering and heart warming. Perhaps that is the reason that the greatest things in life cannot be seen or heard; they can only be felt. Black is Hatred, Black is Love. For Love has no identity without Hatred and Hatred becomes redundant without Love. They are two sides of a coin. Two sides of Black. We come from Black and fade away into it, and the light we see in our life is an illusion - For at its heart lies Black. It is up to us to choose. It is our perception as to what we make of it. Whether we acquire wisdom, or rot in its ignorance. Why can't souls be seen? Because they merge into the darkness around them. Therefore, our hollow souls are containers of experiences, which are lost into eternity and infinity, once they are freed from the fallacy of their existence.Black is the great canvas of innovation, it is the blank page that contains a great dynamo of thoughts. It is in Black where the truth lies, and as human nature is everyone it is afraid of the unknown; afraid of the darkness around them and within them. If we just let go, we might have to fumble our way for sometime, but in the end we shall emerge as all the more invincible. Black is conception, inception and termination. There is always a way of communication and it is where without music, without pictures, without words one can understand each other... Black is the zenith that something can reach. It is all that remains when everything is taken away from something. Black is the only thing that survives after oblivion.

Writer's Block

As I'm typing, I'm listening to music of the 90s' (I love those songs!). I have nothing in particular to write (read the Title). It's been like this for quite a while. The funny thing is I want to write! But I just can't.

I'm sure you know the feeling. You really, really, really want to write. You'r blocked. You've hit the wall. The words just wont come.

I guess in my case, I'm bereft of inspiration.

So I'm going to a little bit of searching- How, Where. . BLAH BLAH ??!!

I don't know (That's my standard answer for almost everything!)

Till then I'm sorry! This blog is not going to be very entertaining.

Fairies

This is a poem that is a representation of people and their fears and thoughts. When we as people get uncomfortable or scared we have a tendency to run. This is what this poem represents. .
Hope you like it! :) :)

The moon has risen the sun has gone,
The fairies come out one by one.
The stars light their way through the weary night.
They must get prepared for their untimely flight.
The winter has come much too soon.
They must flee this night, by the light of the moon.

The days are cold, the nights just as bad.
The fairies have lost what they once had.
The warmth of the sun, the breeze of the night,
Now they are desperate, fleeing by flight.