lost

Scenario 1: 3^rd sem, first mid-semester.

We had just finished writing an exam on algorithms and data structures. Somehow shwe and I got to talking about NUS during the one and a half hour break we got before our next paper, PERL. That’s when I realized for the first time that my life wasn’t the way I wanted it to be. I looked at the first question in the previous question paper again. “What is an algorithm? What is it used for”? That’s when I understood what it felt like to be answering questions meant for a 5^th grader. I ended up bunking the next exam, because I was too depressed to live my life then.

Scenario 2: 5^th sem, end semester.

This time it was artificial neural networks. But this was a slightly different situation. The paper was tough, no doubt about it. The teacher didn’t know anything, so she hardly took class. No material to study from, no proper guidance. No nothing. The list goes on. This is what I’ve been hearing ever since I came out of the hall, clutching the question paper with both hands, not knowing any of the answers. It’s not about not doing well. It’s not about the mark or the grade or my rank in class. It never was.

There have been times when I don’t want to accept my mistakes. Times when I take the easy way out by putting the blame on someone or something else. Times when I was arrogant enough to think my father was wrong. But now, I am finally starting to understand what he’s been trying to tell me for so long. What everybody around me tells me all the time. Study, aim big in life, have some goals, do SOMETHING.

I was disgusted with myself today. I’ve come to a situation where I’m complaining about a few questions that were not mentioned in the syllabus copy. I’ve never heard those terms before, but I could have, if I had bothered looking them up. If I had bothered looking up new things on the internet. If I had bothered about the subject at all. Basically, I’ve arrived at this situation where I’m cribbing about my life once again. But now I know it’s my fault. Today, for the first time, I feel debilitated. I’ve slowly settled into a life of mediocrity. I’ve succumbed to Indian education and it’s multitudinous ramifications. I didn’t think I would, but here I am, shamelessly accepting the fact.

It’s not just Indian education. People who want to do well really make an effort. It’s not the just-studying-for-the-exam bit, I went past that stage a few years back. Where’s the studying-because-I-want-to part? Sometimes, I study and read things because I really want to get to know more. But beyond a point, I know I don’t go that extra mile. I’ve turned into a lethargic, indolent teenager. Oh wait. I’m not a teenager anymore. So now I’m successfully an otiose adult.

I’m hoping that this realization that’s dawned upon me so late in life will have some effect on me. My lifestyle. My thought process. I’m hoping. I know this is not how I want things to be. But then, how do I want it???

zest for life!

A long time obsession has come to an end. The fascination remains, that can never go away, considering how much you have given me. but you no more get special attention. I have lost interest in you. It's time to move on. You meant everything to me sometime back, but you have been replaced. I'm not sorry,it's not my fault. You just weren't good enough.There's competition out there, you know. I'm not saying i wont come back to you ever, just that i have better things to look forward to now.
Good bye garlic pickle. Thankkam mavadu is here, and i swear, it literally titillates my senses.

The minute one bites into the crunchy mango piece that is soaked in chilli water, a slight bitter taste sets in, that makes one wonder if it can be classified as pickle at all. The sudden rush of piquancy clears all doubts and makes this the best side dish I've tasted in a long time. The chilli powder, mixed with a bit of salt on the ripe mango gives it a spicy finish,and the taste lingers on for a long, long time. I personally feel kerala has done a great job. Hats off to thankkam mavudu.

P.S- I'm not endorsing the thankkam brand.I didn't even know it existed until a few weeks back,when fe, being the blessed soul she is, brought this delight to my attention. :)

P.P.S- Those of you who love having pickles as much as i do, also try Mother's garlic pickle. :)

This is a list that has been compiled over many, many vetti lab sessions. No continuity whatsoever. It's just a collection of things i like to do, in a completely random order. Yes, i said 'random order'. I believe in chaos theory. :)

I love to

1. Go kwazeeeeeeeee!!

2. Play Happyland adventures.

3. Make weird posters for my room! Come visit, you'll see!

4. Draw, though i know i can't.

5. Watch the worsht chick flicks with my friends and then think about how jobless we are to be
watching chick flicks.

6. Watch good movies and pass comments on how the actor looks.

7. Sit in the lawn, alone, drink tea and watch the sunset.

8. make people laugh, even if it means making a fool of myself.

9. Sit in the rain and drink hot chocolate.

10. Jump on my bed.

11. Make fat jokes. That will continue even if i lose weight.

12.fight with friends over silly difference of opinions and then after a few months laugh abt it till we cry. I don't like the fighting part but i sure do love the part where we make fun of each other for fighting!

13.try programming. I know I'm really bad, but executing even a simple program on my own gives me happiness beyond measure.

14. *wink* :)

15.have a long conversation with a friend after a long time

16.sing, croak, bark, bray, make pressure cooker sound, make weird faces,and anything and everything under the sun that could even slightly indicate that living in a single room is more of a necessity than an option.

17.play pacman. best game ever, seriously.

18.type the same thing again and again and again and again and again. Okay, this could go on forever. And by type, i don't mean ctrl+c and ctrl+v.

19.forget about my blog. Again, the forgetting part is not great, but realizing after a long time that i do own a blog where i can type anything i want to,is an amazing feeling. Seriously.

20.drink barrels and barrels of buttermilk and feel so full that i need three people to carry me back to my room!

21.make fun of random people on the road, includes imitation of the way they walk, talk, move their fingers etc.

22. spend time with myself. i know i live alone and all, but i can't seem to get enough of myself.

23.Watch friends. It's sort of an addiction.

24.watch Hugh Laurie in House M.D. The show as such is good, but he makes it so good that i can even bunk exams to watch him all day.

25.study. Sometimes, if the mood sets in,it's hard to stop.Really.

26.Try out new things when i go out to eat. The latest was this visit to coffee world, where i had this drink called 'cloud nine'. The description said it'll make me turn blue and then purple, i guess for me it was the other way round!

27.misspell words delibratly. I know it's not funny but who said i have a normal sense of humor? :D

28.Color like mad. I love crayons and i think they are best used when I randomly kirikkify.

29.have intense discussions on any topic with a bunch of friends. It's fun to get to know others' opinions.

30.talk to my brother. Miss you bro! :(

31.Listen to music. Dunno if i can live without my music collection. I guess i can, but i don't really want to.

32.eat anything related to chocolate. Icecreams, cookies, cakes, pastries, ANYTHING.

33.have maggi with kurkure. Fe came up with the combo and it's mindblowing!

34. Irritate fe. :)

35.Draw tattoos. My friends think I'm good at it :)

36.chat with someone after a long time. Friend or not, just knowing that there's someone who used to study or play with you, is such a nice feeling.

37.ride my cycle. Yes, I still go cycling. It feels soooo good to go down a slope at maddening speeds!

38.Wear my loose, dhola dhola white tee. *grin* :)

39.just sit and think about the goooood times :)

40.watch the stars.

41. hold squirrels. This is something i discovered quite recently.

42.eat my mom's food. I swear, noone can cook better than her!

43.loosen up my limbs and move them in a completely random fashion. Can't call it dance, but can't call it anything else either!

44.draw on myself.

45.recover from setbacks. That's something that keeps me going.

46.spend time choosing what to buy.

47.go to an amusement park!

48.play with my nephew.This definitely tops the list. But again, this list is in no specific order.

49.Rest my tired limbs after a good deal of exhaustion.

50.Be happy and content and cheerful and chirpy all the time!

DASAVATHARAM

Well, this isn't what i call a review. As usual, since i only have a fuzzy idea in mind, i don't know what it's gonna shape up to be, so here goes. I watched the movie in Benglooru, (forgive my spelling). For one, the ticket prices are bloody expensive. But going into that is starting another story altogether about inflation and other technical subjects i dare not tread upon, so let me stick to the movie bit. Well, to put it in a nutshell, it was passable. But just that one comment on a movie so extravagant would not suffice, so I'll go into the details. The first part of the movie, where they portray a real life incident which took place like 5 centuries back, was impressive, sets and all. Kamalhaasan had a lot of showing off to do, and for once i felt he flaunted more skin than Mallika Sherawat. Napolean didn't act, or if he did, it was masked by his big larger-than-life beard.The music was surprisingly good. The minute i heard that Himesh Reshammiya was the music director, i swore not to watch the movie, but once i heard the soundtrack, it was quite decent and i changed my mind. The first song could have had amazing , but again, something was lacking. I guess acting. All i remember of the first song was Asin trying to cry, and Napolean trying to navigate the boats in a direction that only seemed to be the middle of the sea. Kamal, definitely, no doubt about his acting. But the rest of them could have at least tried to come up to half his level of acting.
I won't give out the rest of the story here cuz otherwise my friends who haven't yet watched the movie will physically strangle me. Not that there exist non-physical mothods of strangulation, but still. Anyway, getting back to the movie, my favourite song was Mukunda Mukunda. Melodious and sweet. The makeup of the old lady was very well appreciated in reviews, but i kind of found it unbelievable. Maybe because i haven't seen a 90 year old woman. Ah, forgot to mention Christian Fletcher. He had nice stunts, and i thought it would be fun to watch the makeup slightly drip or fade as the action intensified, but thanks to Kamals perfection, i missed out on the fun. Many people found the telugu guy extremely funny. The jokes, if cracked by me in my hostel, would get me numerous stares and growls from my friends and they would instantly classify them under the mokkai category. But since the jokes were cracked in an A.C theatre in the midst of a considerably large crowd, it was well received. Then comes the chinese guy, who i think was there in the movie only for kamal to play yet another character. Then the extremely tall guy, whose innocence was overwhelming. Then the righteous guy, and hey, i assure you,only his voice sounded like kamal. He put up a very believable accent. How can i forget Avatar singh? Again there in the movie only to make it run for 3 hours. The bullet magically curing his throat cancer gave the audience their money's worth. They had after all come to see a tamil movie, and OBVIOUSLY,they had expectations. Well i guess that's about it. At least that's all i have to say about Kamal. Mallika, the usual. Too cheesy, and the dubbing was horrible. She only fit the role because she probably fit into size zero clothes as well. Jayapradha,the movie was definitely not a platform to show off her talent. Asin, wasted. She got quite irritating in the middle. Actually throughout the movie. The character she played was quite clearly for the romance factor. Not really contributing towards anything else. And ah, one thing i hated about the movie was the way they kept killing people. One second they were there, delivering a dialogue, and just as i thought their character had an important role to play, BAM! Shoot Shoot Shoot, AND he/she is dead.
What really caught my attention was what Kamal said at the end of the movie. It was obviously in tamil, and it roughly translates to english as follows.
Asin: Whatever you do, please don't say god isn't there.
Kamal: I never said god isn't there. I only said it would be nice if he is.
Actually speaking, i wanted to base my post on those two lines, but since this blog is long enough to bore you, I'll keep that more interesting topic for later. I at least don't have to sit in front of my comp and figure out what to write the next time.

P.S- Didn't feel like i gave an apt conclusion. Overall, if you're a fan of Kamalhaasan,amazing makeup and a chase-me-all-around-the-world story, go watch dasavatharam! If you have seen it already, comment! Well, comment anyway! :D
Ta.

An easy way out

The look in your eyes says it all;
You're all set to flee,
not ready to think back, recall;
that the fault, mistake, all lies on thee.

Just a moment won't you take?
to realize, accept and move on?
Instead, if you wish to put at stake
our relationship, then all is gone.

The outcome of an argument
should never be to part ways,
cuz then, whatever we ever meant
to each other, will just fade away.

A difference of opinion - let it remain,
We're different people- can't think the same!
let's patch up - forget the pain,
it's after all "US" - let there be none to blame.

Now how simple this is, you see?
All it took was a few lines of poetry!
I've resolved everything inside me,
Now the question is, will you agree?


P.S- As is quite obvious, this was written after a small fight. Not exactly a fight, more in my words, a difference of opinion. I know I've tried a lame rhyming technique, but hey! I'm not here to win a competition! 

The toughest thing i've ever done

You know how frustrating it is to mindlessly type something, read through it once and realize it's meaningful enough to post, read through it again and decide it's worth nothing and trash it,in like, half a millisecond? Well, if you don't, ask me, i know that feeling only too well. I'm not a regular blogger. People who visit my blog should know that. And if there is someone out there who's visiting my profile, hats off to you. I haven't exactly been blogging, so, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE? No offence meant,if the kind observer is still reading on, you must know i'm frustrated. If you still don't, go back to line one. This isn't an infinite loop, yes i've learnt a bit of programming. IF you're reading through the whole thing again, HAIL WHOEVER, even I haven't been able to achieve that feat. Partly because i have no control over what i type. No, i don't mean someone is standing behind me forcing me to type all these things. It's more like, there's someone in my head, but well, there's someone in everyone's head, so why bother about my head? Well, it is my head, and my blog, and if I don't bother about my head, who will? So here i am, not really knowing what to say, but babbling once again, for want of better things to say. My point is, I've proved to myself that i can't blog. Well, not that i thought i could. OKAY i did. But doesn't everyone think they're capable of climbing the mount everest? The only thing stopping them is, well, they don't WANT to do it. But if they should, they could. Not that i SHOULD blog. Just that i thought i could and the surprising fact is, I'm not even disappointed, now that i know i can't. But blogging, right now, seems to be the toughest thing I've ever done. And am doing. Why i'm continuing to torture myself and the rest of you is beyond my comprehension. Oh joy, I've actually justified the title! Yipee! that does mean i can blog, can i? *wink* All i can say now is,
GAWD HELP THOSE BLESSED SOULS WHO CALL THEMSELVES FRIENDS, UPON WHOM THE WEIGHT OF THIS ABSOLUTELY MEANINGLESS POST MUST BE THRUSTED. MAY HE REST IN PEACE.
blah? :D
P.S- A good friend of mine insisted that only if i post everything i type, i can improve my blogging capabilities, so, I disclaim all responsibilities for the pain i have inflicted.

lab time

No prizes for guessing where i am right now. yeah, stuck in lab. RDBMS lab. For those of you who don't know what that means, RDBMS stands for Relational Database Management Systems. Now please don't ask me to elaborate, i really don't know,(actually don't bother to know) anything about the subject. It's one of those labs where you mechanically type a lot of things, not really trying to understand what crap you have entered. I'm bugged. I'm very bugged right now. What is the point of having so much to do, and yet sit in a lab(I'm here ONLY for attendance,btw) where you do ABSOLUTELY nothing. Nothing useful at least. For example, this subject might teach me how to enter records into a database, but the lecturer doesn't even know how to correct an entry. i made ONE mistake, and here i am, asked to type the entire thing again. No manual to help, screwed up net connection which is so slow it takes ages to open even the Google homepage, and definitely none to guide me. I'm in a situation where i can only scream 'HELP', though i know there will be no response. "HELP!!"

Pongal hols.

A city? Yes. SASTRA university. The advertisement i i fell for, almost a year and a half back. No regrets about joining the college. I'm unsure about what i want to do, don't know if i like my course, but that's my problem, not that of the college, so no regrets. But, the ad sure did fool me. A city? Puhleeeaase. Technically, a city should be well equipped. The college has given me much more than what my seniors ever dreamed of, so I'm not complaining about the facilities either. But the concept of taking permission to go home? That too, twice a semester, according to the rules of the great college. Excuse me, but i'm not the only one who finds that ridiculous. TWO permissions, that too only on weekends, read the notice put up just before we left for our so called "Pongal holidays". Let me remind you that, by taking one day off, I'm spending nine days at home, which is just 5 days short of what i got as a semester break. And to top it all, saturday's working. surprise! surprise! Yes, our college decides to keep college when they very well know no one is gonna bother attending. Only a couple of people i know changed their plans because of the announcement. That too i'm sure it's only for attendance. WHATEVER!

Here goes my first blog!

Hey everybody, or rather, hi, cuz i don't think many people will bother visiting. This is not the first time i'm starting a blog page. I've had many, many starts, where i'd just come,sign up,post enthusiastically, then forget that the ID exists, and eventually forget the password to my account. Hopefully, this won't be one of those attempts, cuz i think it's high time i start typing something meaningful out here, and make my own little contribution. I don't know what i'll write about, and this being my first attempt, i hope i don't drive away those of you who have decided to take a look. I'll be back with more!