Intermission !!

Yes, an intermission - for this blog and for IIT life; although a small one of a week..
Going back to Bangalore :-)
This is going to be the last post before the intermission :D, terming it intermission because quite unsure of going to home again in diwali due to some probable TA work !!

Waiting ahead - Ganesh Chaturthi, Graduation day, Friends and Family. Looking forward eagerly to that now..










And just like the intermission is preceded by an unended suspense and thriller sequence - so will be mine; with 2 back to back tests in Functional Programming and Crypto..
Just squeezing in some time when I am bored of studying for both to write this blog entry..
Anyway, lets just talk good and positive things here, and drop this topic !

ITS OFFICIALLY HERE - LAN BAN: And big news of the week; IITB has finally imposed its all famous lan ban for this acad year - so no more chatting, being online, using internet beyond 12 AM !!
In a sense, it is good; because it might mend my sleep late, get up later habit :-))
 
And people may laugh at listening to this again and again - But no mood to study o-O !!
Now that the test sequence is over for a while, it does not even matter ...

Another important highlight of the week was yet another series of group chats with friends - never get tired of those..
And these days - I am often the one leaving last; hence encountering an empty group chat box - chatting with myself :D


Bye for now, see you after a week Mumbai :-)
And Hello Bengaluru - I am coming :-)

Quizzical 8-O

Blog post after a considerably long time - thanks to the quiz series thats happening; and didnt feel too bloggish in writing about the same academics, assignments and quizzes again...

But have to mention one thing in that regard - the taste of zero seems close in some of those quizzes :D

Kannada Ringtone - Forgot to mention this in my previous entry; saw a Mumbaikar put the tune of the all famed Sonu Nigam's kannada song(should I name it :P) as his ringtone; and was even on to utter a few words of the song because he totally loves it!!

Each day of Quiz has ended with a movie screening on my laptop - notably Ready, Transformers...
And perhaps had a headache in the morning due to overstaining of the eyes - not definitely by reading; but due to watching the movie until late night..

Have to say the Best part of Ready -> Pee Break/ Coffee break :D

And nowadays phone call interval to home has gone up to 3 days - seems unreasonable, but cant find time to call home o_O

Ordered 2 books from Infibeam - got the book that I did not need immediately, but still waiting for the book thats needed for Tuesday's test to be shipped by them...
Should try Flipkart next time !!

Time now to go offline and watch another movie..

The Journey is better than The Destination...

This week started out just like any other, but ended in what probably is a good note..

Had a partial 2 way skype with my cousin - and well, it was a Deja Vu of my skype chat with Prashanth.
Still in the lookout for a proper skyping !!!

And Independence day was quite special - I woke up early that day !

Not to lighten up the sanctity of the day, but I felt sort of regular and punctual for atleast a day in my independent living..

It was as always patriotic to witness Flag Hoisting and recital of the national anthem :-)

And most of the week went heavy on the academics, with the Profs announcing when they are planning to take the quizzes and all; with me still in search for the inspiration to study !

Chinese effect - Looks like there is something special happening between me and chinese food. Whatever sounds interesting in the canteen happens to be Chinese; and I end up eating it for over an hour :D

Last time it was Chinese Bhel, and this time it was Triple Rice o_O !

But anyway, found out that the canteen guys are from Karnataka, and speak Kannada too :-)

Eventful Friday evening -Had finally gone out after 3 long weeks(and had to walk a hell lot for that!)

School Nostalgia - Met school friends Pavan and Chhaya, marking the occasion of Pavan coming to Bombay..

Discovered the 'posh' side of Powai on the way - big huge buildings, gardens, magnificent Powai lake...

Bengaluru reloaded - Oh yeah, totally reminded of Bangalore. Bus travel, traffic over flyovers, lot of apartment constructions, tech parks and IT companies(didnt know there were any here...), slow moving buses in a sea of traffic jam, malls, window shopping :D

Destination: Infiniti Mall, Lokhandwala

Late by just 1 and a half hours, it was a definite change I needed; and speaking to old friends and all that nostalgia is always fun :-)

Midnight Lonewalker - Reached back IITB at 12.30 AM in the night ! - count that too as an experience..

Also noticed that Bombay operates 24/7 - buses, autos, trains - all run past midnight as well..

IITB Main Road - Beyond Midnight!!

Phonetastic - Had a lengthy conversation with Tabrez today - more than half an hour..

I think that is one of my personal records :-O !!

Had also called up my grandparents after a long time !

Last Note - What does the post title correspond to ??

Though it may seem referring to the Friday travel, it has a lot more..

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.

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Officially declaring now that since I am pretty much settled here at IITB(the destination); and this blog is all about my experiences(the Journey); you are probably going to see far few writings from now on..

I, Me, Myself - Am I ???

Just a big daunting question that has been bothering me - quite beyond the bounds of this blog; because this is not something that has cropped up after I have come to Mumbai..

Am I a "I, Me, Myself" guy ??

Not that I am a serious narcissistic or something - but for someone who is quite defensive of expressing myself, I feel that I have expressed myself quite a lot over the past few months!!
Now that is not something that I am really proud of - rather its something that I have turned into...

Looks like the preceding section went too abstract. Here is an interpretation of what I mean:
* Putting a personal view for most of the social networking comments
* Rather excessive tweets/posts of whatever interesting I do - movie, outing etc
* A "How are you?" chat often ends up in me enumerating a list of things that I accomplished - quite many of  those being insignificant, or irrelevant.
A return "How are you??" takes a real long time to reach the person who pinged :D !
* This blog - its title, its contents - Isnt it all about me ??
* General conversations - I always feel the urge to express "I did this", "I know this", "I have such an experience", "I" o_O !!
* Finally - this blogroll; notice how many I's and me's I have used !
And still more to follow..

So here is the question - Is it bad being this kind of a "I, Me, Myself" ???

Breaking Records !!

Yeah, totally breaking records - in lazyness, late sleeping, later getting up....

Slept at 3 A.M yesterday; and consequently woke up at 11 A.M today !

And also broke the Have Breakfast resolution - from the past two days, it has only been Brunch, preceded by a midday bath..

Downloaded an incorrect Aaraksan movie from the local lan - the film was indeed a documentary about reservations; but not the currently disputed movie...

Snakes in the Hostel - One more scare that has been disturbing people around, these days...
Heard that one creep was sighted in the bathroom, while one of the hostel inmate was taking bath !!!

And the newest of my hobbies - Games on Google+ !!!

Wishing all my friends of PESIT a memorable Alumni Meet :-)

One month Up !!!

Finally one month up...
And in those starting days, I never thought I would make it so far...
Guess it is yet another simple example of human endurance and acceptance.

Here is a look-back:

• Horrified at the look of the hostel and room !!
• Homesickness - want to run back home !
• Disinterested in classes and orientations..
• Some weird philosophical posts.
• Disoriented sleep hours.
• Advent of classes.
• Heavy Indecisiveness o_O !
• Peculiarities around.
• Finally making the cut :)
• Getting adjusted to the environment..
• All set and ready for action!
• ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಂಜೆ 
• I am Fine :-)

Just the reflection makes me feel that I have become slightly more independent, a bit of a different lifestyle, fractionally better in taking decisions, a bit more mature;and may be overall an improved individual...

Now the negative points(whats existance without critisism and negative entities??) - more lazier than what I was, no accounting and responsibility albeit the bare minimum, expertise in delaying action, heavily youtubed...

But well, these are small things(and hopefully remain so) that can be supressed!

Finally my first trip to home is confirmed - booked the tickets today; thanks to roomie Amit for that; because I have forgotten the password for my netbanking account :D !!

Looking forward for it....

I am Fine :-)

Finally I am saying that with full-heart to whoever asks me how I am, unlike whats below :-)

Day 2 of Sleep Early, Wake Up Early resolution - and I guess its going pretty well; sleeping at 1 instead of 2 (in the night!). Thats a 100% improvement :-D

One more practical resolution - Never miss breakfast; missed it once and had a horrible time in the class !!

They say Too Much is Too Bad - Realizing what it means; No Lan Ban until now; and the net is almost always up - I end up watching videos on Youtube; or watch movies live online !

Atleast foodwise I am improving - Honouring the note of "Food wastage is a crime! Dont waste food" signboards all across the hostel mess by finishing up whatever I take most of the time...

Had a meeting regarding my Teaching Assistantship again today; and got Sir gave a motivational analogy of how we should be at the lab - like the last man in a battlefield, ready to take charge and attack - not the students, but their fear and anxiety :D !!

The late evening was a funny Wiki day. Here is a chain of how I went through different articles on Wikipedia:

RSA -> Quantum Computing -> Integer Factorization -> Quantum_cryptography -> Emerging_technologies -> Far Future Timeline -> Big_Bang_to_Heat_Death -> Boltzmann_brain -> Doomsday_Argument 

Simple RSA algorithm lead me to Doomsday !!!

At the far end of the day, watched Delhi Belly - that crazy short movie could have been shorter !!

3 days of holidays coming up - with absolutely no plans whatever on what to do..............

First Quiz

Yesterday's post was more like a report/answer - short & precise :-D

Lets continue the form today....

Had my first quiz - based on paper reading; and I guess it went pretty OK..
Generally, opinions may change after results..

Nothing like a sound sleep just before the class - had a quick afternoon cat nap :-)

Got into a 6-team for the Network security project team; just wondering what would happen if a single person is asked to implement and test encryption schemes like DES, AES etc :-D

And finally I am available on public domain(other than social networking of course ;-)) - My home page @ IITB

For a change - sleeping early; in the hope of waking up early tomorrow!!

Assorted affairs

Yet another assortment of what I have observed and experienced..

One of the first things that I have seen after getting a new sim is that the problem of Mobile spam is huge here - every day I will be richer by $100,000 or ₤500,000 -  Just that I should go and claim them !!!

And heavily Youtubed - I end up watching videos and listening to music until 2 A.M; seriously addictive !

The undergrad labs are going from late to later - all the way upto 11.30 P.M :-/ 

Forgot to mention the most important thing - No more SMSing since the day I have been in Bombay..

So one less SMS freak in the world :-D
Some people might be heaving a sigh of relief on that !!

The paper reading mode has finally begun - for computer networks...

And my tagline is becoming "Sleepy days, sleepless nights" ...

End note: The blog description says something ! 

Peculiarities and Perils

Time for yet another directionless post...

With not so special events happening today, let me just talk about some of the pecularities and perils that I am either directly related to, and some that I am not so directly related, and some that make no correspondance with me as well :-)

1. Convocation to passing out batch of IITB - Well, whats peculiar in that ??
   The dress - Jubba and Pyjama; not the all-famous black overcoat symbolizing the English way of convocating...
   
2. Snake men and snake women at Railway stations - When you approach near a moving crowd in a local railway station, you can hear a distinct "Ssssss" "Ssssssh" sound encroaching you....
    No reason to freak out - its one of the prominent signals used by hurrying passengers to alert you to move away gracefully, and prevent getting toppled over :-D
   
   Crazy mind wondering if Mallika didi got inspired from all this Hisssssssing for her movie :-D 
3. Sabu Dana Saga - Our hostel is bent upon feeding us with this very special dish occassionally.
   Unable to track the taste on the first encounter, its the first thing I avoid; and many in company for that...
   But the dish preparation continues, and so does the piling up of plates with filled Sabudana at the wash basin !!
4. Bedless - This one is totally personal ;-)
   Didnt take the bedding for the first few days, in the feel of the self-formed bedsheet semi-bed..
   But by the time the realization came that  bed is a necessity, all the bed vendors within the campus had moved out :-/
   Next up is a semester's wait to get a proper bed !!
5. Moodle - Ok, now this might be a Intellectual Property(IP) issue O-o !!
   The flaw I have observed is that it offers course enrollment, but when you drop the course; you dont get unenrolled automatically !!
   Easy way for diligent sit-throughs and knowledge-gainers to get course related resources :D
6. Assignments - Hmmm. After all that exposure and experience that we had in first sem at PESIT, it should be a piece of cake right ??
   Apparently not, I find myself back in square 1 - submitting at almost the deadlines, working on most of the weekends, and postponing important things to study for the same.....
7. Hostel Mess - Many of you might be thinking - "Is this guy ever going to stop whining about the hostel food??"
   But thats how sometimes the menu turns out - Rasna on the day when curds are available, Poha for Monday breakfast, almost everything aloo-fied, quickly depleting resource called Pulao(that wont be available after half-an hour of mess opening!!)
   But the beauty is that I have gotten used to it these - all the above stuff is not complaining; its just stating facts ;-)
8. Night labs for juniors - Guess thats what it means to be at IIT. Imagine if you had to sit sit for your 'regular' lab hours slotted at 8.30PM to 10.30PM !
   Hard workers arent they - first JEE, and then this...

Hmm, that went more pictorial than expected :D
Well, some thought for the night :-)

ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಂಜೆ

ಇಂದು IIT ಬಾಂಬೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಂಘದ ವತಿಯಿಂದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಂಜೆ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ನಡೆಯಿತು :-)

ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ಇವತ್ತಿನ ದಿನಚರಿಯನ್ನು ಆಂಗ್ಲ ಭಾಷೆಯ ಬದಲು ನಮ್ಮ ಕಸ್ತೂರಿ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇನೆ...

ಕನ್ನಡ ಓದಲು ಬರುವವರು ಮುಂದುವರೆಸಿ - ಬರದವರು ನಾಳೆಯವರೆಗೆ ಕಾಯಿರಿ ;-)

ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಪ್ರಯುಕ್ತ "ಗಾಳಿಪಟ" ಚಲನಚಿತ್ರ ಪ್ರದರ್ಶಿಸಲಾಯಿತು - ಒಮ್ಮೆ ನೋಡಿದ್ದರೂ ನಮ್ಮವರನ್ನು ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಕಾಣಲು ನಾನೂ ಅಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಹೋದೆ.

ಬರಿ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಲ್ಲದೆ ಕೆಲವು ಅಧ್ಯಾಪಕರು ಕೂಡ ಬಂದು ಚಲನಚಿತ್ರ ವೀಕ್ಷಣೆ  ಮಾಡುವುದನ್ನು ನೋಡಿ ಸಂತಸ ಹಾಗು ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯ ಎರಡೂ ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಆಯಿತು :-)

ಏನೇ ಆಗಲಿ ಒಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟು ಜನ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರನ್ನು ನನ್ನ ವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಂಡಿದ್ದು ಖುಷಿ ಕೊಡುವಂತಹ ವಿಚಾರವೇ ಸರಿ...

ಸಂಜೆ ಮಾಡಬೇಕಾದ ಕೆಲಸಗಳನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ಬದಿಗೊತ್ತಿ ಇವತ್ತು ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಂಜೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದ್ದು ಇವತ್ತಿನ ದಿನಚರಿಯ ಅಧ್ಯಾಯ.

ಈ ಬರಹದಲ್ಲಿ ಏನಾದರೂ ತಪ್ಪುಗಳು ಅಥವಾ ನ್ಯೂನ್ಯತೆಗಳು ಇದ್ದರೆ ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ನಿರ್ಲಕ್ಷಿಸಬೇಕಾಗಿ ವಿನಂತಿ..

ಇಂತಿ ಸಮಾಪ್ತಿ :-D

ಕೃತಜ್ಞತೆಗಳು: ಗೂಗಲ್ ಲಿಪಿ ಪರಿವರ್ತಕ  

   

Late is the Mantra

Guess being late is an inevitable part of Hostel life - with no one to remind you to be on time; except for class timings, wake up on time, do things on time - its like a Doctor's prescription for lazyness !!

Woke up at 10 today - and directly came online :-D
And it has become a habit to stay online and do nothing - bliss of online idleness/joblessness !!!

Rest of the day was all gnuplotted - graphs, bars, charts, diagrams !!!!

And for sure, my biological clock is getting altered - sleep at 2 and get up at 10 :-O
Hope "Late to Bed and Late to Rise" does not make Sumanth screw up MTech !!

But it is amazing how the whole day goes eventless, and you notice it only after it is bygone...

And watched Manasaare movie yesterday - excellent light hearted yet thought-provoking movie :-)
Coming to movie appretiation - I guess if I was in Bangalore, I would not have been appreciating any movie so much..
Guess this is one of the first indications of change !!

Its Missing time, again...

No, I am not being nostalgic and talking about missing someone or missing something very dear..
But rather I am referring to the sense of not doing something; in time or in circumstance!!

For instance; this blog write-up was supposed to appear yesterday, but due to some unfortunate lazified circumstances - it is being written at 10:00 PM on 6th August, but published for the date of 5th August ;-)

There have been a few Misseous things happening - missing to call home(probably my first time after I have been to Mumbai; which - in a sense indicates that things are improving...), missing from studying what needs to be studied(there is my lazy self talking again :-D), missing alarms to get up early(even when there is a need), missing the link of whats happening in the class(in lieu of point 2 ;-)), missing classes(some would be leaving out a sigh - "ah finally!!"), missing the chance to go out on weekends(no comments x-|), and finally; missing direction and intent of this post !!!!

But whats life when you dont miss something - either you gain experience out of it, or at times it is fun to miss something :D
And sometimes, you may even miss out on what you missed....

About the day - my chat status said everything: ಶಾಲೆಗೆ ಈ ದಿನ ರಜಾ :-)

To end the note - I am really missing out on what eventful things happened yesterday; so consider this as a 'Miss-terious' substitute :-)

Roomie's Birthday, Improving Mess Food

Long stretch of Amit's Birthday - started and ended unconventionally...

12:00 AM 04 Aug 2011
Ananth, our other Kannadiga batchmate coming to wish him; and us talking about Amit's Cisco experiences, Dravid, Infy Narayan Murthy, education, research and lots more until 2 PM...

12:00 AM 05 Aug 2011
Amit's birthday treat(finally) at the near end of the birthday - Eating something called "Chinese Bhel" at midnight :D

Courtesy Google Image Search - Never thought its a valid dish name ...

And surprisingly mess food is improving o_O ; I had given up on its changing - though there is the usual Dal-Roti; there are things like butter milk, rasna, rasagulla, jamoon, lassi, pulao etc. Of course, not all of them together, but on different days !!

Tried to get some inflow of Network Flows into my head today - cant really say how much is left in the residual network of my brain :D
Spherical rosagullas are much easily graspable than such convoluted network graphs ;-)

Life in Extremes - Lazy Wednesday !!

Definitely I am experiencing extremes - heavy Tuesday followed by a relaxed and slow, lazy Wednesday...
And since the day I have been to Mumbai - I have noticed that even the city has both sides of extremes - posh areas v/s slums; costly hotels v/s affordable eateries; hectic workforce v/s relaxed people, Hostel 6 v/s Hostel 12/13/14(guys here in IITB would know ;-) ) etc etc...
With the passage of time, I may explore more of such extremes...

Woke up at 10 today - has become sort of habit; with no one around to wake you up on time !!

Went for my document verification - anyway knowing the result of it - Partial documents; no degree certificate(I am not yet an Engineer; unlike most of my self-proclaimed Engineer friends :D), no migration/TC(Wonder why do we have so many formalities!!)
Felt like going to play a game; knowing that at the end of it you will anyway lose :D

Had the software lab course in the late afternoon - learnt how to plot graphs with my friend and played around with it...
Told Sir that I was "peer-programming" when he saw a blank screen :D

Noticed a 'small' hairline fracture of my laptop's keyboard today - No clues as to how it happened :-(

Downloaded some of the books available on DC++ appropriate for the courses - just one thing remaining though; the urge and the interest to study !!!

Final Note:
Today's Realization: I desperately need a "head bath" tomorrow !!!!

Funny how literal translation of ತಲೆ ಸ್ನಾನ sounds in English :D :D

Heaviest day of the week from now on - Tuesday

With one class in the morning, two from afternoon through to the evening, and a late night lab for B.Techs; its bound to be !!

Thats the first thing that would come out of my mouth on each Tuesday :D

Finally gave the form for account opening - after a long holding period of over 10 days :D
And went and sat in the network security class - just to be overwhelmed by the speed at which the class goes !!!

Just getting back some of C++ and unix while being in the B.Tech lab ....

And as an after-effect of the late ending of the academic schedule - being online past midnight; terming it as "online duties" rather than internet addiction :-)

Choice By Elimination

Finally made the cut - Chose the needed four courses :-)
And did that by eliminating the not so appropriate or infeasible choices; from my viewpoint..
I have made a discovery that of late that is what I have become good at - Saying No, Ditching something, Disapproving something..
But as long as it helps - No harm doing it :-0

And one more small but noticeable improvement - leaving my mobile phone behind whenever its not necessary. Somehow that makes me feel that the homesickness is going down !!

Sat in networks class to find out that it remains to be one of my interests - hoping that it will continue being so :)

Tried video calling my cousin - and well; it was quite a comedy of errors..
But still - unable to figure out whether there are any network problems here, or is it always happening due to the opposite party !

The day ended with a long group chat with Thrupthi, Umesh and Susheela - after a long time; and went on just like good old days of college :)