Emotions and Photography 1

My phone storage is almost full, and now it's time to remove some photos. Since I keep high-quality DSLR captures on my phone, it’s always full.

Going through my old photos feels like a trip to the past. Among all these pictures, there are a few that I like the most. What makes them special is the emotions and feelings they capture. Photography is about freezing a single moment in time. The intention of the photographer, and how they see the world, is a unique art.

The following moment was captured during the blooming season at the University of Peradeniya in 2023. My roommates, Nethmi and Sathsarani, and I couldn’t visit the other side of the university and were complaining to ourselves. Somehow, we all agreed that the next morning, despite having lectures in the afternoon, we would go to the other side to see the flowers. (Normally, the three of us don’t do this sort of thing—waking up early for a walk, and especially planning one on a day when we have lectures.) Somehow, we managed to wake up and get ourselves ready. We were the first to step onto the field of yellow flowers that day. It was so refreshing—the cool breeze and the pure fragrance. I took out my DSLR from my bag and captured a few amazing shots. We were all so glad that we managed to get out at that hour.

Then, suddenly, a group of kindergarten children started running around. I think they were from the university preschool. This photo gives me an even purer feeling than the flowers themselves. When I reviewed my shots later, I realized how amazing this picture is—the teacher and the children trying to pick flowers, the little girl holding a garland, and two other girls watching her. They are like little flower buds, always blooming. I love this moment.

My sister and I are addicted to the beach. We love visiting it once in a while. I believe it's truly a remedy for relieving stress and dealing with all the hardships we face. It's as if the waves can absorb our burdens and carry them away. This moment was captured during one of our visits to Panadura beach. I edited the photo in black and white to give it more emotional depth.

I couldn’t crop the image to focus more on the father and son because of the slippers in the bottom corner of the shot. But I think they add value to the image. It reflects the love, affection, and bond between a child and a father—a son enjoying the sea, with his father right behind him, watching his son’s happiness. There’s no limit to this kind of connection. It’s like a life insurance policy that fathers provide for their children throughout life. I love this because it reminds me of how my father has always stood behind my sister and me through all our hardships.

Once you visit Apeksha ...

 

blood donation to celebrate mom's last regular clinical session

Finally, Mom could leave Apeksha Hospital without another weekly clinical appointment written on her card. After 33 days of continuous radiotherapy sessions and recovering from the burns on her leg, she is feeling better and more hopeful.

We know she is doing all of this for us, because we insist on it. Otherwise, since there’s no pain in her leg, she wouldn’t go through all these hardships. I still can’t believe how strong she is to endure all this pain for us. Sometimes she cries, often hiding it from us. But she has been incredibly strong, going through everything and still saying, "yanthan athi"

Last days of Uni life...

I can clearly remember the day the A/L results were released. I had one B pass, and it was for physics. However, my district rank was 25, which means I wasn't that bad. Still, I knew I was on the edge of getting selected to the University of Moratuwa, which was a dream back then. I had never considered the University of Peradeniya because it was far from my home, while Moratuwa was only 18 km away. Anyway, I was very doubtful about what would happen and asked my friends if I would get selected to Moratuwa. Last year, 34 ranks went to Moratuwa, so I had some hope. Finally, the university selection day arrived, and I was selected for

the University of Peradeniya. My mom was in tears; she was not happy at all. My sister was like, "Superb, now we can visit Peradeniya frequently!!!" (In all those years, she only visited twice: on the first day I came to the hostel and during one blooming season.)

I felt empty and nothing much was going on in my mind. Anyway, I had been selected for the Engineering Faculty, and my new target was to do my best. Over time, I fell in love with this place. From then on, I defined Peradeniya as my most wonderful failure.

I always had the idea of becoming an engineer. When I thought about this, my imagination always ended up with me as an electrical engineer, and I don't know why. That was my dream. However, I was doubtful whether I could get a high enough GPA to be selected for the Electrical Engineering department. I got more than enough. My hard work finally paid off. But I wasn't that good at electrical subjects, and I was a little afraid to go into electrical engineering, so I decided to go to the highest-ranking department, which was the Computer Engineering department. However, my mind was still saying that I didn't want to end up in front of a laptop screen for my whole life. (And here I am, typing my blog story and thinking the same thing.) But back then, it was the pandemic, and staring at screens was the only thing we could do. So I thought it was fine.

The second year was okay. I had to deal with some rough times since my father had to undergo surgery. Other than that, everything was fine. The third year was not actually okay. We had a third-year project and had to do a lot within one semester, and that was not fine. But we managed it. It was over. Then came the internship. That was my first industry experience, and it was really good. Then cheers to this year. The final year started with the FYP, my first-ever research experience. I had my last presentation as an undergraduate on 9th July 2024. Now it is only two weeks until the final examination.

It feels a bit strange when all you want is to get out of this place and finally go back home officially. But once you know you have only one month left here, it feels strangely different. This place taught me a lot about people, being independent, and adjusting to availability. Yeah, and to eat anything and survive (basically the simplicity of life).

Once you visit Apeksha ...

Today I arrived to Apeksha even before my parents, I just love this place.

Not because of anything, but...

I like noticing people without any judgment.

I like to see how parents are looked after by their children.

I like to see how parents fight against cancer with their children.

I like to watch small children playing and dancing around like nothing matters.

I like to hear how doctors and nurses talk to these people with affection.

I like to hear the voice of that old lady who sings every evening at the radiotherapy unit.

I like to appreciate very humble wealthy ladies who offer food in clinics.

Specially... I like to see people who are trying even though it's damn hard.

Once you visit this place, you become a completely different person with a completely different perspective on life. 🖤

Once you visit Apeksha ...

 

I have always loved the word "hope(අපේක්ෂාව)", perhaps since watching the movie, Shawshank Redemption: "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."

Every corner at Apeksha Hospital embodies fighters. Every fighter, every caregiver is on a roller coaster. But they keep fighting.

After a cancer diagnosis, everyone's life changes. Maybe you'll fully recover, but mentally, it's never the same. You gain a new perspective on life. You start valuing every minute and stop caring about others' opinions.

One memory that got stuck in my mind while I was sitting outside the children's clinical room. For a moment, I wanted to be empty, to observe without judgment. Three little girls had their ice caps on, trying to invent a game like I did when I was little. It brought a smile to my face. Nearby, their parents were watching them while waiting for their names to be called by the nurse. I wondered what they were going through. I didn't pity them; I admired their strength and felt proud of them in my mind. And then I went back to my mom who was waiting until her name was called. 

#6thDayOfMom'sRadiotherapySession💛

Final Year Project

This project topic was selected with a lot of doubts since the domain was totally new to us. But here we are presenting our work to school children and introducing Bioinformatics to their dream goals. This was an AI showcase organized by the Multidisciplinary AI Research Center at the University of Peradeniya.

I still can remember how we opened the first short read .fastq file on my Ubuntu machine and it was slowly loading since the file was too large to handle. we were not very familiar with handling these large files. We just wanted to know how these reads are contained in the files.

While we were starting the project the department servers did not have UPS and there were frequent server downs. And it was a nightmare as we were executing time-consuming processes. Thank god once the servers were upgraded with UPS we could manage our tmux sessions and we did not want to blame much for losing our sessions on the server.

It was a good six months with metagenomes and department high-performance servers. 

A lot of discussions, since we three were already roommates. And the best part was once we got into a problem I just had to look back and Nethmi was there or to look right and Sathsarani was there. 

After all these months we learned a lot!

This was our first project with real Supervisors and our first research experience. And we were lucky enough to work with two amazing experts who became teachers to us. 

And one note, I think, again I fell in love with Engineering. 

I am always grateful to our supervisors Dr. Damayanthi Herath from our department and Dr. Vijini Mallawaarachchi from Flinders University, Australia. 

And I need to mention my teammates, Nethmi Ranasinghe and Sathsarani Aththanayaka.

Never forget your first company

 😇 This a grateful note

Unicorn Solutions (Pvt) Ltd 🦄, a Norway-based tech company, is neither a large organization nor a small one. It is a place where talented individuals develop tech solutions for credit management.

I still remember the first day I went there. I was a bit nervous, as one might expect on the first day at a new office. It was definitely something new. We had the opportunity to meet some people and attend technical sessions on the first day to understand the domain and our specific project.

From the next day, we were given resources to help us familiarize ourselves with the new tech stack. After the first week, our team lead assigned us small tasks related to documentation and minor bugs in the backend application. We smoothly transitioned into the project work.

I got the chance to do a demonstration for the whole company. I was able to share my knowledge with my team when they encountered difficulties, and I conducted knowledge transfer (KT) sessions for a new intern who joined our team about a month later. Experiencing real teamwork in an industry environment greatly enhanced my soft skills.

The flexibility provided by Unicorn Solutions should be admired. The lunch hour, often spent playing Carrom, was quite fun.

All the fun activities and organized functions are superb and should be admired.

After completing the internship at Unicorn, we had a break for about two months. We then rejoined as part-time employees. Now, as we near the end of our project and prepare to graduate and transition into permanent job roles, our time at Unicorn is coming to an end.

Skills: Technical(React, Redux, .NET Core, MongoDB, Azure, Machine Learning, Python, Flask, Git, Bitbucket, Jira, Confluence) Soft skills(Communication, Team work, Problem-solving, Critical-thinking)

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This is an improved version of my writing by my partner ChatGPT 😉