A nightmare in the day!!!

Just woke up form a horrible dream - made me jump up in the bed, and thankfully my roomie was not around to see the drama! I just had to pen it down - for both its horribleness and twists.

So here it goes - may get weird and crazy in the course; but please bear with me - after all, its a dream....

The outset is my brother going to the college he got admissions in; but all of a sudden, he rushes into another college that refuses him his 'M.Tech' admission; and starts vandalizing the place. I get a call an hour later about his actions, and go out there to see what has happened.

There he is - sitting untethered by what he did, and instead of scolding him, I turn to console him and make him reason as to why he did it; the reason which is shady even in the dream version. Just then, the principal walks in - a big man with a heavy temper; and goes berserk at the happening. He yells out that my brother shall not get admitted elsewhere, and he would inform the authorities of the unrulyness that would result in rustication. Meanwhile I drag him out.

Scene two - I am taking my brother on the road, all the while scolding him, a result of delayed realization may be; and we go into the college he wanted to get admissions; and surprisingly the people there agree, only to get a call from the Big guy and throw us out.

Now back at home - my dad is surprisingly calm, and my mom is all tensed out about the situation, I am worried about whats going on - at 2 levels: about the situation and about the dream. Then suddenly, he storms out at near midnight - and I follow him, still harsh on for his erratic attitude. However, on the way through - a weird boost of philosophy about life kicks in, and we talk and talk; in some weird gibberish, until we realize that mistakes happen, and amends can be made and we shall put all this behind and start afresh. 

Climax - A totally unrelated and fiendishly cliche event. We are walking back, when we see a bunch of travelers that are talking half in Kannada, and half in Hindi - mostly about how well that road is useful as a detour to cut their journey by half, and one woman keeps boasting how it was her idea. So they see us, and one of their girls comes up to my brother and starts talking. He starts narrating the day's happenings, and she starts giving appreciative nods - a chubby little cute girl. All this while, I am trying to avoid conversations and strut out weirdly, almost running, in an equally weird hood like costume; while they are happily chatting away.

Considering that all this drama is happening at our main road - the conversation should end in 5 minutes, but it goes on and on.. Surprisingly, my brother still looks the same, while I am 20 to 30 years older. Thats what woke me up!

So this was not the conventional way of bringing up my family and particularly in a post - but I guess the weird dream did demand the story be told. 

May be the dream represents some of my hidden intentions or its just a cockamamie of things running in my head. I have to state that none of the above stuff is made-up, I mean I have presented as is what happened in the dream; so its an actually virtually actual story !!!!

Monsoon - Full On...

Season 2 of Mumbai Monsoon is here....
For the past few days, the rains had been mild and occasional, but since yesterday they have gathered pace!

Currently the atmosphere is pleasant - with the rains cooling down the surroundings that were scorching under the sun a week ago. After seeing the effect of the summer sun and the accompanying heat waves, this one is a way better...

But things won't remain like this long though - soon it is going to be raining non-stop for hours, the ground and the roads will be wet or damp, and no one shall dare to go out without an umbrella even to the neigbouring building.
All this is bringing back memories of the first time I came to Mumbai - me and my Dad were fed up of the rains and the trains on the way to IIT !!

Well, in my friend's words: "Its time to pull up your pants, open your umbrellas and face the rains"
Welcome to Mumbai Monsoon :-)

Mother's Birthday Celebrations and some Resolutions

Back in Bombay, but heart still at Bangalore - so here is another narrative that occurred back home. There was one post with reference to my Dad, this one is for my Mom.

I must say my mom had a rather lavish birthday this time around - took her and my brother to Pizza Hut and McD; and also bought her a thing or two she had wanted for the home. Well, the latter went fine, but the former did not go as well as expected....

Apart from the general disapproval of first time tasting - all 3 of us were definitely discontent about the plan. If its just plain old onions and tomatoes on a batter that you get for that much money; anybody would have the same reaction; unless you are willing to just throw off money. This experience definitely re-instilled my views on pizzas as a waste of money.

So resolution 1 - never eat pizza (mom's perspective) or eat it only when its treated (my perspective ;)). 

It also happened to be a learn by experience moment...

The other part went just well - got some kitchenware that was needed; this time definitely money well spent. So resolution number 2 - always give preference to useful gifts first, rather than going out to some eat-out place. We had such a system in our college friend circle - and it works great !

And the obvious thing - malls are not the best places for family outings; hotels are convincingly better! There might be different views on this, but this is where my stand is....

Next up: Year 2

Back to Bombay after nearly a month long vacation, to face the second year of my course...

Entering Reporting mode.....

The vacations got prolonged due to the coincidental absence of my Prof, and knowing myself I wouldn't have done any work by coming earlier. And they were pretty usual - stay at home in weekdays and go out to meet friends and relatives on the weekends; but with a few welcome changes. 

One thing about going back home is spending quite a lot of money - a thing that bothered the naturally stingy side of me :D

One fun outing was at Chairman's Club resort - the highlights of which were a zip-zap 5 minute Zorbing session, and a delayed Xbox Kinect experience, and the awesome food - certainly worth the money. If anyone plans to go there after reading this review - do remember to take the appropriate swimware for total paisa vasool....

I also kept up my reputation of bunking meets - bunked an elaborately facebook-planned friend meet! 

Also went around to some PU colleges for my brother's admissions - crossing out all those colleges I had been for mine, and trying the other ones..

Switching back to non-reporting mode.....

The coming days call for initiation of the MTP, reiterating the placement preparation saga, and just 2 more courses that make up the the complete course structure, and in the meanwhile try to explore more of Bombay. Quite simple sounding set of tasks - but certainly the crucial year that has impact on the years to come..

Also, it is the last year of being a student - a decree of no responsibilities and lot of fun; something that a lot of people realize once it has passed. Fortunately, I am having a second of such 'last year's,  so time to capitalize and enjoy it..

And also thinking of testing to try to cut down on being lazy and wasting time doing nothing. Well, I do sound very confident while saying that :D

So shouting at myself: "Ahoy Captain, 2nd year ho!"

9.point Somebody

Well, of course, it sounds like CB's much famed book title. But this is the nearest I can get to make my 9.0 SPI sound fun! 

And also there is the IIT commonality; alas there were no Cold Feet on Metal experiences ;-)

Anyway, 2nd sem ended in a much favorable outcome than the first! Time to think more positively about IIT now - who knows, I might write a post on the pros of IIT soon...

Now the Somebody part - there is no big deal feeling after reaching 9.0 this time, considering the choices of subjects and the potential number of people who would have crossed this barrier; and more importantly the minuscule effect it has on the bigger things in life(oops, I guess thats the effect of Philosophy, hmm, nope, just some social networking trivia). Its upto me to make that count..

But it surely did push up my CPI, so things seem much better now. So it is yet another juncture to remind myself to get rid of the laziness, work more sincerely, make proper utilization of time and before points 1,2 and 3 think - Should I do all that ? 

There kicks in the Bangalore and Home effect - no more stuff to write. Good night folks :-)

2nd Sem Sum-up

Yet another semester has dawned - and so the counting begins: Just 2 more sems to go...

This semester started off with an anticipation to do better than the first one - and the target was fairly achieved I guess.The application of Proportional Efforts Theorem continued, aided by a definitely better choice of subjects, where it worked out pretty well...

Not much travelling around - notably once to Elephanta and Bandra, and later to Marine Drive. Other than that, life has pretty much been confined to the IITB atmosphere...

This sem did have a few learning and self-exploring experiences, like how I was being Over-reactive in the first sem, how habits affect us, interaction with teachers, and a Deja-Vu of the good times of B.E! And a serious concern of spontaneity taking over me would occasionally make my day! 

Time is utmost important - a thought that always bothered me, but still I spent countless hours watching sitcoms, youtube videos, being online on facebook & gmail, or do plainly nothing for no apparent reason!!

Then there was a quick visit to Bangalore, which was a surprise to my family, and on coming back had the highly expected MTP Orientation. Things got a bit serious then onwards, with quizzes, assignments, projects, midsems and obviously classes. But there always was the opportunity to relax and have fun amidst all that too - like the non-dancing at the job treat of seniors, and almost 24x7 internet, albeit a minor 3-day Lan Ban.

And then there were the obvious end sems, followed by a period of boredom owing to a late rescheduling of seminar; prompting writing of outdated posts like describing the travel back to Bombay for the start of the semester, an 'analysis' of the IIT transformation, and fueling a whole lot of lazyness...

And today was the culmination of it all with the seminar, and I happened to sound lower than the certainly least audible girl in the room - an indicative of how well the seminar went!!

Anyway, heading back to Bangalore tomorrow - so Bangalore, Here I come again :)

  

An Ode of Laziness

Laziness is one very characteristic of me, anyone who gets to know me will figure that out too...

IIT life has fueled that rather well - perhaps I am at my lazy best !!

The very basic thing that has aggravated is my sleep patterns - sleep late, and wake up very, very late - classically lazy. There have been many instances when I have missed classes(and today my TA duty too!). Currently I am touching the extremes of it - almost midday by the time I wake up..

And there always is the air of general unwillingness to do anything. Does that come back and kick me ? - yeah, there are one or two probable occasions, but well, I am too lazy to elaborate on that too..

But laziness seems to be an easy answer for everything - why are you late? why didn't you do this thing? why is this not perfect? etc. So much so obvious that some people won't trust it to be the valid reason. But well, it is yet another manifestation of laziness to push off all the wrong-doings to laziness itself...

Well, laziness has kicked in during this discourse. I shall say no more but put an image or two of I'm NOT lazy quotes...

I am so lazy of late that even though I realized that an ode is a poem, I am too lazy to change it; so if anyone inadvertently expected a poem - you are not going to get one! And a last one - lame excuse of a lazy example - "Be Lazy, Go Crazy" :-D