18/05/2015

18/05/15; 20:51:

It’s been an eventful first week in Banglore! I walked down to my new workplace on Saturday morning (9th May). I got an introduction to the organization- how it all began, how it functions, their goals, beliefs and an insight into my role, working with them, over the summer. It’s a really small organization (I met most of the team!) in terms of human resource; but, it is very large in terms of the impact that they have and are creating! I will be dealing with collating data for an imminent scientific paper, organizing blood donation drives and creating awareness about the importance & benefits of voluntary blood donation.

After the short introduction, I made my way to M.G Road which is one of the most famous locations in Banglore! We walked down to Indiranagar and got ourselves good food and dessert to match! I walked back some way to where we’ve put up; en route, I made a mental note of the multiple nice-looking food places that I passed by!

Sunday was mostly spent lazing around and eating!

11th May i.e. Monday morning (maybe I’ll just call it Day#1) was my first real day at work! I sat around, tallying data off physical forms with the data on the online database. I also met some more members of the team; I also got a look at the different websites and apps that are in use.
We got ourselves some Andhra-special food from Nagarjuna for dinner! (This followed an attempt at spending time at Dice n’ Dine- the board game cafe; we shall go there again, with more people!)

Tuesday (Day#2) began at about the same time as Monday, around 9:30 a.m. Work that had begun on Monday was wrapped by Tuesday evening; I shall follow up on gathering the missing data early next week.

I was to attend my first blood donation camp in capacity of a member of the organizing team on Wednesday i.e. 13th May at EIC-Telecom at ITPL, Whitefield. I walked down to Silk Road Junction to get myself on a bus to Whitefield (which is about 20 k.m. away). I got there a little after 1, for the camp that was to begin by 2 p.m. i.e. right after lunch. I watched the setup very curiously- there was a pre-donation area where donors were to fill out forms detailing their medical history; then, there was a team of technicians and a doctor, carrying out a general physical examination of the potential donors- including their weight, Blood Pressure, Haemoglobin and Blood group; next was the bleeding area, where the actual blood donation happens- each donor was handed a labelled blood bag and directed to an empty bed. There was, on an average, one phlebotomist (the technician who bleeds the donor) to every two donors.
The last bit of arrangement was the post-donation area- where mandated refreshments- about 200ml juice and a pack of biscuits were handed to the donors, along with a list of precautions that they should follow for the next few hours.
The donors started rolling in almost as soon as the camp began; there is a set of requisite questions that must be asked of each potential donor- related to food, sleep, medication, alcohol and drugs.
The camp wrapped at around 5 p.m.; about 20 units of blood were collected that day!
Later, I accompanied Arpit (the guy at work whom I’ve been shadowing) to a meeting with the HR head at Aegis; in the next building- we’re looking to organize a blood donation camp there, in the near future.
I was back by late evening and headed out to join my new Banglore room-mate (still my batch-mate at IPM!) who was meeting an old friend for dinner!

14th May aka Thursday was spent at a Blood Donation Camp at Robert Bosch at Marathalli. This is also where my new boss works, on the side (So, the NGO I work with is run by a small, enthusiastic team of young people who are software engineers by day and the NGO guys all the time!). This camp was very well organized; I’d made a mental note of how it was the best blood donation camp I’d attended – the events over the next two days verified this!
I got back rather late; we had rasam-chawal for dinner, at the PG and tried to get to sleep early.

After getting to sleep only post-midnight, I was up a little before 4 a.m., and ready to head to Mysore on the 5:40 a.m. train. A cab and Arpit picked me up from my PG; we spent the three hours on the train talking and then sleeping.
Once in Mysore, we had chicken curry and parrotas for breakfast, right outside the Wipro Mysore campus. The Blood donation camp began a little after 10 a.m.; we had a very large number of women donors coming in, here!
A little after 6 p.m., I was on an inter-city bus, back to Bangalore; thanks to the famous Bangalore traffic I only got home by 11 p.m.

Early the next morning, i.e. the morning of Saturday 16th May, I made my way to Ittina Neela Apartments at Electronic City. I managed to get terribly lost on my there (even falling asleep on the bus and missing my stop by a good 10 kilometres!) and got to the venue only by 10:30; the camp began by 11 a.m. We had our expectations set rather high and were disappointed by the donor turnout. I made a new friend in a bubbly 3-year old whose mother donated blood! It began to rain (I think it was most definitely a thunderstorm) around 2 p.m. post which we lost power too. I got back, soaking wet, by 8 p.m.

Most of Sunday was spent sleeping in; I then got myself Masala Dosa for breakfast- I also learnt the right way to eat a Masala Dosa! I then met an old friend for lunch; we spent a lot of hours talking. I got to sleep early, and then proceeded to get up late on Monday morning.

There was a report of my activities of the past week to be compiled, so, I got working on that! I also got my bag fixed; in other happier news, I finally bought an umbrella and fixed the button on my jeans! Looking to a good dinner, now!