Atleast the weather is pleasant ...

I've started reading Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" when I should have been reading Operating Systems and Microprocessors ! Supposed to have a lab. sessional on 'Advanced Programming' tomorrow.. the intent to study is defintely there, but the drive seems amiss. Apart from these trivial issues, my major concern is something of a larger proportion - No, its not the troubling situation in Pakistan or the terror in Nandigram - its more grotesque - its my protruding tummy. Looks like its destined to manifest itself into a more sizable portion of my anatomy. There is no dearth as far as the initiatives of change are concerned, the persistence is lacking - just as it is with millions of people of the 'about to be obese' brotherhood. Have plans of materializing more on my plans, but nothing is easier done than said.

Meanwhile, I took time from my supposedly busy schedule and saw OSO(Om Shanti Om for the few who are wondering) yesterday. Actually, entertainment is a very high priority activity and Farah Khan shares this line of thought with me. Ok, if you think I am going a little over the top, then it might be the other way round i.e. I'm convinced when Farah Khan wants me to convince that a package containing everything from comedy to reincarnation is entertaining.

Something very interesting that happened recently during my microprocessor lab. sessional exam a couple of days back. I resorted to (traditionally) unfair means of taking the programs with me in my cell and could successfully finish what I was supposed to write. So, my egoist half taken care of, I was ready to let the altruist in me take over and help those in need. Did help a couple of guys, and one of them actually gave me a gift in the evening. Now, this is what I call a true expression of gratitude. I'll treasure the pen as a souvenir of his nature and as a token of his appreciation.

Even if I don't do so well in tomorrow's exam, I'll have one reason to be cheerful... atleast the weather is great !!!

Totally "De-Quantified"

Had a class in 'Quantitative Aptitude' which went on as all the Q.A classes which preceeded it. Seems like my affinity towards numbers, or rather the lack of it is taking its toll on me. These ghosts of the past which I try to leave behind seem to be too stubborn for my liking. None of the problems appear solvable to me. And once solved, I keep wondering on how would such approaches strike me. Even though calling the optimist in me to the rescue does help to calm down the frustration, the realist in me knows its not enough. I've starting doubting the priority I've assigned to different things and contemplating if changed need to be made to my long-term plans. Giving up is never an option. The next better thing seems to be trying harder.

Class was a small affair as I didn't feel like sitting through the rest of the classes after the first one. The time was properly utilized in the form of a sound siesta. Second half was quite ordinary in the lab. Evening was spent in learning the basics of Flash for TGMC. Plans for checking out Q.A seems to need another procastination.

Looks like its got me ...

Lots of things to write about ... lets start with the recent ones ...

Conjunctivitis - guess it was almost inevitable. With the virus spreading at an unbeleivable pace, its tough to keep up those high standards of hygeine, especially in a hostel. Though it would be wrong to say that I didn't take any precautions, but I guess they weren't really enough. Guess I caught it yesterday at a friend's party... Anyways, not much of a concern, will get over it in a couple of days. ( don't let the pic. fool u, it was taken before I got infected, strictly for purposes of showing off )

There was a workshop by IBM which was supposed to teach us the tools required for TGMC, but it started and ended with 'Tivoli' - a backup utility software which seemed as an optional addition to our project. A slight info. regarding DB2, Eclipse or WebSphere might have been more helpful, but doesn't matter.

Meanwhile, life ticking as usual. Had the leftover microprocessor exam day before yesterday. Went off as expected, actually slightly better than expected. Had a slew of celebrations before and after the exam. Also, my team's TGMC synopsis seems to be almost over. Actually, it was complete, but as the last date for submission has been extended, we've taken the liberty to spend some more time on it for improvements. Whatever be the case, I'm more than keen for the coding to start as I have a lot to learn from this project as do some of my team mates.

Signing off for now.. hope to be back soon !

One Man, Many Missions ...

1425 hours : September 18, 2007

No apologies, no excuses.. it just always seems so cliché, only thing I can say that I was supposed to be busy with writing my mid-semester exams, registering for TGMC – The Great Mind Challenge, thinking about the advertising event to be held in our tech. fest, besides trying to cope up with mba prep. ! It happens with almost everything.. once you start to ignore something and put it in the back shelf, then you tend to postpone it for ever. And thats exactly the reason the blogs have not been coming. It seems like eons have passed since I have posted the last one. The exams went almost as expected, nothing extra-ordinary, very mediocre. TGMC work is supposed to be progressing, and I am sure the synopsis will be complete by the deadline – a typical engineer's statement as I would like to put it. The use-case diagrams have to be discussed with the rest of my team and have to be given a concrete shape. Does seem like a gigantic task at this point of time, but if it has to be done, then it is going to be done – 'by hook or by crook'. Advertising work is also progressing at its own pace. I have referred to a couple of sites for studying the trends in the advertising industry and all kinds of related shit. Also had a couple of meetings with the senior who is supposed to be in-charge of organizing the event. The only thing left to be done, and probably the only the only thing that needs to be done is framing the problem statement. Big deal, huh ? Nopes, when I know I can do it, its never going to be a big deal, just a matter of time and the right effort at the right places.

Meanwhile, I seem to have become an admirer of Deepak Chopra, the spiritual guru. His open-ended statements are the type whose meanings are obvious, but the sentences are brilliantly phrased and cannot easily be debatable. One of the statements goes like this “The level of enlightenment of a person can be judged by how comfortable he is with contradiction, ambiguity and paradox”. Now all paradoxical concepts have always been very appealing to me, whether scientific or general. According to me, every spiritual or religious text or phrase is ambiguous and can be interpreted in a no. of different ways. Its only limited to the no. of people who are willing to take the initiative to interpret it their own way and spread it to a larger no. of people. If his interpretation finds favor with a large no. of people, he is hailed and respected and his following increases exponentially. One more reason why I liked Deepak Chopra is he doesn't forget to show his humility at the end of the article. At the end he states that he has yet not achieved that state. Quoting my own paradox, it would be something like “If someone says that they are perfect, that is the first and the best evidence of their imperfection ...”

Hey Babyy !

0042 hours : August 27, 2007

This Sunday was not a typical one. Can't remember the last time I woke up as early as 7 am on a Sunday ! But then, this is probably going to be the norm now.. no more dozing till late as GD is going to be a regular weekly affair hereafter. As I am currently not overflowing with a dozen or so interesting topics, lets start with a dissection of my first 'GD training class'. The teacher, a 'smarty' who did his MBA from XIM-Bhubaneswar, now working in a financial firm was unable to make a healthy impression on me and most of my fellow batch-mates. He was definitely smart, confident, probably also knew a lot about GD's, but that in no way justifies his ridiculing of certain students, apart from trying to act as 'Mr. Know-it-All' about engineers. Some students were a part of the mock-GD which didn't even remotely qualify as a discussion. It was more of a series of verbal blasts of oddly-framed, mostly irrelevant sentences, often phrases directed at each other with tons of aggression thrown in. The instructor's not to be blamed in this case, he wanted to show what possibly can go wrong in such situations. His critical analysis of the situation started out on a good note, but was left without a proper conclusion, which again didn't seem OK with me. Finally, by the time I was on the way back, I had made up my mind to focus on how can I extract the best out of this resource available at my disposal. He definitely had certain desirable qualities and attributes. The onus is on us to derive the maximum benefit out of him.

The later part of the day was spent in an equally disappointing venture – `Hey Babyy`. Grossly below expectations. I hardly criticize a flick this harshly, but this one deserves worst. Ignoring the fact that I have a personal dislike for Sajid Khan, I find the direction absolutely direction-less. The star cast, especially Ritesh Deshmukh and Vidya Balan must have been out of their minds to have signed to a script which is so pathetically predictable. I haven't mentioned Akshay Kumar because he is an established actor and one mistake won't cost him much. Fardeen Khan never seemed of any use to me in the celluloid frame, so I am excluding him from the list too. Even if the story and script were given even a fraction of attention that the title track was given, Akshay could have managed the rest of the show. Typical cliché bollywood dialogues, predictable storyline, hapless repetitive comedy – I don't remember the last time I made such a bad investment ! 'Aap Ka Suroor' was a lot better compared to this shit which is supposed to be a rib-tickling entertainer. If this is all left of originality left in the industry, I would prefer lift-offs from other cinemas worldwide.

Two things that went right today was the Lassi we had at Ligaraj, Shahidnagar and the 'methi ke parathe' at the mess.

“Good food is the best anti-depressant and stress buster” - Anand Biswas

Unperturbed, Undisturbed...

Situations often arise, where you have to wrap yourself, your feelings, emotions and thoughts within yourself. What might seem right to few, may start to seem right to a larger mass after slight persuasion. Pride is one such avenue. It is a weapon used by people to justify their mindless acts. I'm not stating that pride is not important. It undoubtedly is.. again thats what makes it dangerous. History has been witness to ruthless acts of torture in the name of pride, but the actual message that was being spread was that of hatred. The only reason these schools of thought became popular was 'pride' - the pride of the masses was used to motivate them to support inhuman and brutal tasks which bore repercussions on world history till date. Something akin is going on in the environment around me. A foolish and unjustifiable act of violence is being justified by stating issues of pride. Agreed, there might be some reasons which enticed these people to resort to thrashing up someone. Maybe because I wasn't at the site, I couldn't see for myself the damage caused to 'our pride', maybe I would also get annoyed at the action which infuriated some of my friends, but at this crucial juncture of my career, it would be absolutely illogical and mindless to even support, forget being a part of such action. Some times when you realize that being altruistic is no more feasible, then one has no other option but to be egoistical. At this crucial point of life, when your slightest action of ignorance could be a cause of regret for the rest of your life, I'm in no mind to let 'pride' take over 'prudence', to let 'emotion' take over 'logic', to let 'adrenaline' take over 'gray cells'. Somebody might call me a coward, but to me it hardly matters. I'm wrapped up in a protective mental cocoon which makes it next to impossible for these petty things to manipulate my internal feelings, thoughts and their resulting actions. Because all said and done, I am going to be the only person responsible for my actions and their consequences.

I've decided to walk a path, now I'm going to walk it undisturbed, unperturbed...

Stretching my limits or .. stressing myself ??

Thankfully, I was able to open the site today and was able to post something ! I've written already numerous times about the connectivity here and thereby elaborating any further will start getting repetitive. Meanwhile, a lot has been happening in my life, from joining TIME (yes, thats where I finally decided to invest my time and money after a lot of thought) for morning classes thrice a week, and pre-placement training going on twice a week in the evenings, apart from regular college of course...life is not the same anymore. Accomodating so much in so less has certain consequences. I've started to feel that I've become much more robotic, methodical and predictable. Though I know that I cannot allow excessive freedom of thought to slow me down, somewhere deep down me, I am not in favour of this change. There still might be time to eat, sleep and go out a little, but there is hardly anytime I spend with myself, collecting and analyzing my thoughts, trying to guess in which direction I am heading. These are situations when the feeling grips me that "I hope I am not trying to hold on to everything and finally going to get nothing". I'm not being pessimistic, I'm just trying to be realistic ! Anyways, thoughts are free to have their way, but not me. I have certain commitments to myself that I cannot forego.

One often comes face to face with situations when he knows he is capable of something, but he has to prove himself to everyone concerned. I totally agree with the notion that if one thinks that 'the world is not ready' for him, its actually the other way round. So, there is a definite necessity of proving onself and it is this notion that is driving me nowadays. Unless there is a unique and distinguishing platform that one can establish himself, he is just another one of the masses. All his capabilities, qualities, attributes , everything is 'normal' - becomes 'expected'. But once there is a distinguishing factor, then even his smallest action, however insignificant it might be, evokes interest in others. This is the attitudinal change success brings with itself, the values you were ridiculed for, suddenly seem to have become virtues one can strive to achieve. My robotic, methodical life may seem frustrating for now, but it is in search of that 'distinguishing factor' that I'm ready to trade a fraction of my thoughts for, attaining which seems to be the only thing that matters. As a popular Linkin' Park song puts it "In the End, it doesnt's even matter. I tried to hard and got so far, but in the end.. it doesn't even matter" - there are no consolation prizes in life and even if there are, I have my mind on something else