Post #100

Well, it took a long time, but here is Post #100 on the blog.
Enlisting 100 things that flash into my mind to commemorate that:

1. Mumbai to Bangalore, Bangalore to Mumbai - 17 hours by bus; 22 by train.
   The farthest place I have been so far !
2. Hostel life for the first time - and that started in Hostel 6 x-( !
3. Speaking in half-polished Hindi
4. Local trains - Lifelines of Mumbai
5. Room # 42, Hostel 6 to Room # B-208, Hostel 14
6. Beating myself in laziness times over in the past one and a half years of stay
7. Placements - Oracle on day 2
8. Squandering time online - facebook, gmail, imdb, twitter, reader and what not...
9. Pissed off my project guide by not meeting for a month - and on the way to do it again..
10. Blogging, of course - why else would this post come.
11. Elephanta, Gateway of India, Nehru centre, Bandra-Worli sea link, Malls, CST - just a few places of visit
12. Running off to home whenever there was a bunch of holidays - not so much now :D
13. Tons of movies and serials: http://www.imdb.com/user/ur35793309/watchlist
14. Staying up overnight and feeling sleepy during the day
15. LAN BAN dictated sleep cycle
16. A renewed taste for Sci-Fi and Fantasy themes
17. Me and my laptop - Best and Worst relationship at the same time ;)
18. Big fat birthday treat - Lesson: Take people to a veg hotel for treats :D
19. Mumbai monsoon bash!
20. Vain attempts at reducing time-waste by staying invisible online
21. Visit to 'Alma Fater' Cisco previous December
22. New facebook profile with Kannada name
23. Kannada sangha and the a formidable number of Kannada people
24. "I used to be indecisive, now I an not sure" prevails
25. IITians of all kinds - serious, not so serious; like me, totally unlike me; research-oriented, job-oriented, un-oriented too..
26. The goddamn mess food !
27. Graduation day at PESIT :)
28. 2G 'Snail'-Net when I am back home v/s IITB unlimited LAN
29. Make and break resolutions after every quiz, exam and presentation
30. Off and On jogging regimes - morning, evening, midnight and now none..
31. Proportional Efforts Theorem - and proportional CPI !
32.  MTP = Mostly Time Pass :D
33. Job treats and Send-offs
34. Tomorrow never comes!
35. A brief spell of documentaries fever
36. Attended many ppts of companies - only to end up getting placed in the first shortlisted company - such a waste of time that could have been wasted otherwise...
37. TA duty - few ups and downs but overall sailing safe..
38. Shortening of every word - Acads, Valfi, Convo, Apping etc among other nuances of the IITB janta lingo
39. Pulling all-nighters - Never for work but to watch serials
40. Showing off 'Still studying' status among other friends who are deep into worklife
41. Semi-successful and uncoordinated meetup plans 
42. First try at a few things - should I say first taste..?
43. Getting into the Tum-tums
44. Spending 2 hours and more to write a blogpost like this..
45. 1 TB hard disk for data needs - and thats apparently not enough..
46. Aakash tablet - for 'educational purpose'
47. Lengthy posts that made no sense - and didnt do anything about the ones that did  
48. No subjects in the last sem - just the big fat project
49. Lot of TO-DO lists that were never done!
50. Few friends and many many acquaintances.
51. The willingness to do anything except work!
52. Retracing footsteps before 10th Std - Dorky and does not talk to girls :D 
53. Experiencing a wider world - outside the Bangalore bubble..
54. Kind of liking the single life now..
55. crazy courses where I got AA - IT Project Management and Philosophy of Education 
56. Halfway through - and wondering who will read this long and blatant monologue!
57. Fill up laptop with movies - and then search for space to save course documents :D
58. Aimless chats and conversations online late in the night - just before the lan goes down..
59. Not sure even now whether I know all the classmates from the M.Tech batch.
60. Following #59 - never cared to know names of students enrolled in the courses for which I am the TA
61. A dirty one - bath cycle extending to once in 3 days!
62. The hype of IMAX!
63. Fingers crossed - Hoping Oracle apps places me back at Bangalore
64. Nostalgia - now and again - school, college, bengaluru and more
65. Ridiculous habits and laziness that are hard to get rid off..
66. Every day was Sunday - January 2013
67. Coding skills - From OK to I dont trust myself bad!
68. Non-dancer at party - and intending to keep that record..
69. I dont understand the big deal about this number !
70. Contemplating all possible ways of cutting back time waste - while doing those activities that are responsible for it
71. An improved Dont Care attitude towards a lot of things
72. Self-induced distraction of things
73. 11 subjects in first sem of B.E v/s 11 courses in entire M.Tech - definitely not the same!
74. 4 more months to go - if I dont get an extension - or else more!
75. NOTHING - most common response to small talk when someone asks about life or MTP
76. Corporate lingo: Current package - 96 kpa
77. Bored and lazy - 2 self complementing moods
78. Lost one month's TAship for not signing attendance and not submitting any leave application
79. Lot of the points on the negative side - what can I say - I am a natural cribber !
80. New attitude towards pizzas - a welcome change out of the boring routine of mess - but better look for coupons and offers
81. Watching runs and re-runs of TV series that I love
82. Oh yeah - they call us 'Matka's :D
83. Stingy as ever - I still dont have a mosquito repellant(and that officially tells that I am out of things to tell and looking around the room for more!!)
84. After the Troll era - its confession time now(IITB confessions, PESIT confessions..). Here is mine - I keep changing my IP every week because I get blocked out by netmon due to some rogue software update requests that I have not been able to figure out!
85. Contrary to the general trend - I like Windows over Linux - and preferably free. By the way - IITB provides 2 year licensed Windows products :)
86. Summer days of Mumbai are no different from Monsoon days - same exhaustion!
87. Going lengths and breadths into making the resume - only to realize that what matters is the top column of marks - same as other colleges!
88. Follow up - CPI matters! Even in IIT!
89. Hiranandani - One place for everything for IITians - and I went there after one whole year!
90. Clocked more time on youtube than my project!
91. Apparently there are some places in IITB like the boathouse that I have not yet visited!
92. Getting a tummy and doing nothing about it!
93. Step out of IIT to see the real Mumbai - and all you get to see is tons of people rushing around all the time - its all about work.... 
94. Au contraire - IIT, PESIT, or some other ****IT - all that matters is you - what you want to be and what efforts you put into it..
95. Correcting answer books - not the best job!
96. Did 2 more years of studies pay off - Upto time to decide!
97. Missing breakfast in lieu of sleep - where else can you do that :D ?
98. Brand name IIT forever...
99. Thinking about a 100 things in a flash(that lasts 2 hours though :D) is not an easy task!
100. Now looking at this list and wondering: Who gives a $#!+ about this ??
     

Exquisite Elephanta!

There is more to Elephanta Caves than just the caves.
Here is why:
1. Boat Trip from the Gateway of India
2. Exploring the now dilapidated caves
3. Hiking up Cannon hill
4. A mini garden
5. A view-only lake
6. Tons of shops
7. A small museum
8. Lots of Foreigners ;)
9. and a fair number of restaurants - albeit upper-priced
--> All the reasons making Elephanta caves a perfect one day trip-cum-trek spot!

Like my last post; I am letting pics do most of the talking - for detailed information; there is Wikipedia anyways :)

The Boat Ride:

The Caves:

The Hiking and the Cannon:

The Lake and the Garden:

Back to the Sea:

A day well spent - for one who wants to have a fun weekend outing :)

Funky T-shirts

It is often said that a picture says a thousand words - so does a T-shirt with a witty or funny slogan. 

IIT - a home for both kinds; definitely has an interesting spectacle of such T-shirts.

So here is a post on a few such shirts I have come across - and a graphic illustration of the same(well, nothing compared to the original ones; but who knows when somebody gets angry for violating copyrights - if any ;-))

"We code the rules, you follow them"

Somewhat egoistic statement by our very own CSE department T-shirt; but thats what we are...

But poor depiction - Imagine a grid of 1's and 0's with the CSE embossing out - so geekishly binary :)

And also missing is the department logo at the back that says "Watch out - The one inside is CSE property !"

"Somehow got in, somehow got out"

A quirky one and seemingly favourite of the alumnis; for reasons obvious...

"IITians - Gods of Dating" 

Keep wondering until they turn the back!

"Eat, sleep, material science"

Probably of the metallurgy department; goes similar to this famous design:-

"Talk Nerdy to me"

The punchline of Techfest held recently

" Road to Success is Under construction"

Well, now that you got the general hang of things; I am going to cut down on the T-shirt illustrations..

This one is the favorite tagline of the Civil(I guess..) students.

" By the time you leave IIT Bombay you are absolutely ***ked!"

Well, Wait for It before jumping into conclusions - Look at what is there behind :P

Some of the other top favorites of mine are:

"So you think getting into IIT was tough ?
Try getting out!!!"

" Cowboys dont take a bath, they just dust off" 

- Not exactly academic; but explains a general scenario crisply !

"Either way, we fuel you"

The Chemistry T-shirt is rather bold - with a beer glass and a petrol fuel injector - the Chems show off what they do best(Sorry, no images hit that depict the shirt)

"Relax, Its only ONES and ZEROS"

Last but very relevant - Not just a CS t-shirt; but also a reflection on the marks :D

Facebook reboot

Long boring weekend ahead - You have to catch up with the course project, but you don't intend to; you are bored with the sitcoms and movies on your computer and not in the mood of watching; and lazy that you are - you don't want to go out...

Given this situation what can be done ?

Well, I created a new facebook profile and archieved the old one - for I am obsessed with it and can live without but not want to !

Few things that I observed:

1. Not many people care why you do it. They just accept the request thinking - Obviously this guy has nothing better to do!
2. A few people do - and either accept the request thinking the old profile was hacked or deactivated; or reject the request suspecting phony account.
3. Even lesser people actually ping and ask whats up with the whole thing. Although the primary reason I believe to be is the Kannada name...
4. Reduction in number of troll posts - the social networks are so very trolled these days!
5. Whatever be the reason - its actually a good way to reduce the number of 'friends' you have - my count: 543 to ~250.

The question remains - Why did I create a new account ?

Silly as it sounds - I did that to remove the non-existent 'Rao' in my real name :D

So here is my suggestion - Want to have the thrill of something new but at the same time reinvent the wheel ?

Delete your old facebook account and create a new one - Start afresh, get rid of some of the old things and keep what is needed.

And catch me on my new facebook account:

 https://www.facebook.com/jsumanth1989

A January of Grand Nothingness

People have lazy Mondays or lazy weekends or lazy holidays - but I had a whole lazy January !!

A rather unpleasant start to a new year - and faced the heat on the last day from my Prof. !

So what did I do the whole month - NOTHING, absolutely nothing !

Whole days went in youtube, facebook. movies, and lots and lots of sleep... 

Not that the time waste is something unique - but it just got amplified this time around - so much that its become a real concern.

Unlike earlier times where some work used to happen - this time no efforts - all time went in waiting for the moment of realization - the sudden spark that comes around where all priorities get straightened up, I get up and go promptly to do the project etc etc - alas, that Magic doesn't ever happen !

Apart from the no work debacle - one other thing I tended to do was thinking of far future, and ignoring the imminent one: "Hey, I will do this after joining Oracle, I should be buying so-and-so stuff, go to such places" etc where the current important thing to do is to sail through the MTP !

So, January did not go well - and all blames on me for that. Went to my Prof. to finally meet him after roughly 2 months - so one can expect the reaction to that. Got advice from a lot of friends to stop all this fooling around and concentrate on work - yet to do that.

And was so very lazy that I did not even write a blog post !! 

Closing words - No promises, one should not do any promises that do not have the intent to be kept behind them...