1. I am obsessed with hand washing.
If there no reasonable space for hand care, I do not even have a Cup of Tea from that restaurant.
In the dream I was looking for water to wash my hands.
Hand washing prevents 90% of human diseases and the other 10% is rare.
In that sense hand washing prevents 100% of all human diseases.
2. I was in charge of a group of preschool children.
There was big itinerary.
Itinerary means planning the entire schedule from transport to activities to destinations.
Something similar to taking a NADE to LUMBINI in India.
There were little girls among the group and I got my wife to look after them.
She reluctantly agreed.
Problems were many
1. Transport was not ready.
They could only found a car with limited capacity.
So transport had to be in groups to the first destination school.
2. We were behind time.
3. The School did not have an auditorium or the capacity to hold the number of invitees.
4. The meeting was held in a narrow corridor or on a verandah.
The children were lined up in a raw not facing each other.
I did not know what was going on.
I guess it was a debate.
Not a round table discussion.
I decided to stay out and sat on a large rock.
Most of the invitees were standing outside.
Some of them were the parents of the children.
I had a camera in my hand.
I decided not to take any photographs.
It is not ethical without permission.
This is when I was looking to wash my hands.
I could not find a washing basin.
5. Foolishly, I decided to enter the school premises from the side entry.
Then only they realized I was the Chief Invitee and there was bit of a commotion.
I woke up.
We were to be on the next destination by 11AM.
The time was 10.45AM and we could not reach there in 15 minutes.
That resulted in the commotion.
Thankfully, it was only a dream.
Auditorium
The real topic was about our Auditorium in the Faculty of Dental Sciences.
We built it to have a capacity of 800 guests. Japanese built it but did not provide us with chairs and amenities.
The University did not give us the money allocation.
Thanks to Lion's Club we managed to refurbish it.
I was involved in making a separate Network outside the University Network.
We had only Rs. 500,000/= and it was not enough to pay the private Network Engineers and the entire length of Ethernet wires for the Ethernet Connection.
I calculated the cost and trained a guy named Nimal Gamage to do the Networking on Saturdays. We paid him overtime which the University could not oppose.
Nimal Gamage was dedicated worker.
Thanks to him we got it running.
By the way, the guy who was in charge of the Apple Networking disappeared with the Apple Computer given as a donations to the University.
I do not know where he is now.
Thank god we did not invest on Apple.
Coming back to our Auditorium we made it half the capacity to 400 with an additional room divided into two classrooms with 100 chairs for student activities. I was in charge of those two classrooms and I used them to Teach Academic English to Dental Students.
I am not sure what is the makeup of this unit, now.
Average Meeting in CEYLON
This piece is to make some critical comments about our way of dealing with Public Meetings.
1. There is lot of Time Wasted on Lighting the Traditional Oil Lamp.
We have to burrow one.
Components include:
Lamp with a 5 wick tray
Bundle of wicks
Coconut oil
Matchbox and a candle
We have to purchase oil, wicks and the ornamental flowers.
I was involved in lighting the lamp only once in 15 years.
May be after the tsunami tragedy.
I did not fancy getting coconut oil on my finger tips. I have stopped using coconut oil on my head hair. My mother used to anoint me, on daily basis as a kid with traditional fragrance added to the oil.
I had a big bush of hair, then.
Coconut oil is antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal and is the best oil on this Planet.
As at present, I believe in natural head hair oil of mine. However, it is drying up with age.
2. Next time wasting involves Greeting the Invitees.
One has to have a list in hand and make a tick as one greets each invitee with the invitee raising his or her hand.
I banned my name to be included in that list.
I sit on the last raw to see how things progress without disturbing the progress of the meeting.
I did not like the meeting to drag on beyond the schedule.
Lately, I introduced time limit for each speaker and saved time for type of "Round Table Conference" in the middle.
3. The third is the Thanking Ceremony.
I have no problem with this. Since the main meeting is over one can thank till cows come home and everybody who is nobody is leaving the place in rapid succession. Some time, there is nobody left except the organizers.
My major concern is to clean up the place on the same evening so that the auditorium is ready for another session.
I banned using it for Meditation Sessions.
4. Thinking Ceremony
No accommodation for Professor De Bono's Thinking to Think Mode.
We have no capacity to think.
We are gullible listeners.
5. I left the most important thing to the last.
This is something, I learned from Professor B. N. R. Mendis.
Throw a Party, in the middle when Round Table Conference is due.
Feast with the slightest opportunity was our moto.
That all depends on the money left.
Cake for the occasions is invariable.
The menu I decide.
Good Cup of CEYLON TEA of my choice.
Sweets, pastries, milk rice and banana, kokkis and oil cakes if available.
One third is supplied by the Dean's Office.
Rest is by the staff members.
I even added chocolate to this list.
We were poor to dish out cashew nuts at lib but at least the milk toffee had few pieces of cashew embedded.
