hospitals

Why do they always show people sleeping on their backs in hospital scenes? I never sleep on my back and I'm willing to bet that most people either sleep on their sides or on their stomachs.

work

No classes today, and that's a bad thing because nothing ever gets done when I don't have classes. I have no motivation to get up from bed.

But there was a project to finish. Or rather, start. We went to the local ISP for a PITEO project. PITEO being "Planning IT Enabled Organisations" and if you don't know what an ISP is, shame on you! The prof is a cool guy. Comes once a month and takes 10 classes in 2 days. Not very nice but when did they ever give a shit about our mental well-being?! Anyway, the project was about their hardware systems and networks and who their customers are and what kind of services they have and stuff like that. It was a good 15 mins visit. I just stood there and listened in to the conversation a guy from my group and the manager were having. It was interesting, but I couldn't come up with anything intelligent to ask him. After that, we went to have coffee.

2 cups of coffee later, I'm back in my room, trying to figure out what to do next. I have one more assignment to complete in the same subject and a couple of cases in Supply Chain Management. The cases are very interesting and I have to do Linear and Goal Programming. I don't remember either. We were supposed to submit this a week ago but we got an extension of the deadline; so, we haven't started yet. Story of my life.

Our internet has been pretty shitty the past couple of day and only now, seems normal. I'm tempeted to go to yahoo games and play texttwist or something. But I'll resist. I think I'll finish work first. I think. I'm turning over a new leaf!

Tata.

I'm screwed.

We had a talk by Mani Shankar Aiyar this morning. It was actually interesting. I don't remember what he said, just that it was all very entertaining without being completely pointless. He seemed to have a bone to pick against biz school grads, tho.

We had a meeting sorta thingy with the placement committee tonight where they gave us the list of companies coming for campus recruitment in January. I have this feeling of impending doom. A cranky evil laughing at me. I have no idea what I want to do, where I want to work or what kind of work I want to do. Two years here was supposed to give me an idea of what I was going to do next. Now, I am more confused and everything seems irrelevant, pointless, vague, scary. I have taken mostly marketing papers. My experiment with finance was a disaster. So what am I going to do? Marketing? Then, what kind of marketing? Do I really want to sell biscuits or software? I am so fucking lost. Everybody seems very sure. They all have dream companies, dream jobs. All I have are nightmares. What the hell am I going to do?

At the same time, I have this weird reassuring feeling that it can't be so bad; that everything will be alright; that I'll figure it all out; that it'll all come to me at the right time. But what if I fuck it up in the last minute? What if I screw up the interviews? What if I am too dumb, too smart, too annoying, too predictable, too weird, too ugh, for anybody? What if I don't want the jobs that are offered? What if I am doomed to a life as a desk jockey? A paper pusher? Yet another Pointy Haired Manager? Am I obsessing over this too soon? Or is it too late?

Sometimes I just hate being me.

today

A prof said, "A homogeneous group of different types of people". And the nobody reacted!

damn!

blogger is so fucked up!

*throws hands up in the air and storms out of the room*

won!

I came 2nd in a quiz we just had. Team of 5. I feel all warm and glowy. It was 2 hours long and great fun. Does it say something about me, the fact that I enjoy quizzes so much? Anyway, we won a "Second place" shield and some toffees. There was no audience coz nobody had turned up. It was the most fun I have had in a classroom in a long time.

This just came in the mail. It's hilarious! Check it out. It's the "Bushwhacked" game. Drop a brain in Bush's head.

I had 4 classes today, of which I attended 2. I bunked both my neuro marketing classes. The guy keeps repeating himself and there is only so long that I can keep myself entertained by looking at his mustache. He han't said anything new since the first class.

I have been watching assorted episodes of That 70's Show. There are very random episodes available here, so it was sorta weird. I saw the first episode of the first season where they just sorta introduce everybody and then I saw something from the 6th season where Kelso is having a baby with some random woman, and then some episode where Fez "Does it" for the first time then another episode in which he's married to Laurie and she's on their honeymoon with another guy and then the one where Eric ditches Donna on their day before the wedding and then the one in which they find Hyde's dad and lots more.

Basically lots of That 70's Show and now I'm very confused. I have seen only the first 3 or 4 seasons on TV and now I saw bits and pieces of the 6th and 7th seasons. There are huge gaps in my knowledge that need to be rectified.

Not much else. There are a bunch of The Wonder Years episodes also lying around with someone. But for some reason, I find Kevin Arnold and his friends very annoying. Maybe I have had too much of them when I was in school.

I make it seem like I have no work here. It's not like that. I really do have a lot of work to do. But since all my work has to be done in groups and all my deadlines are not anytime soon, I don't have work to do now. If I do have work to do, somebody from my group will tell me what to do and by when and I'll do it then. It's a brilliant system. In a few subjects, I even do some of the pushing to get the work done on time.

Anyway, cheerios. Will go see either Apocalypse Now or more of Eric Foreman's basement.

Adios amigos.

And then...

.. nothing. I really have better things to do. I should be doing, uh, other things. You know, stuff that I came here to do. Like... stuff.

Anyway, since I am so busy and all that, I have a question for you.

There is this guy... who sometimes sits in my vicinity. He is a very nice guy and all that, but he smells like a homeless person. Or what I think a homeless person who hasn't bathed for a very long time and is outdoor all the time smells. The weird thing is, he is not the kind of guy who has, um, bad personal hygiene or anything. There is this other guy who claims to bathe like once a week or something, and he dosen't stink. But this guy does.

The question is, how do I get away with not ever being near him? He is a nice guy and all but... I can't hold my breath for long.

Anyway, that's that.

Maybe I should rename this post Assault of The Olfactory Sort.

I saw this really really really awful movie called Dog Soldiers. Really really awful.
Werewolves, special forces, Scottish forests, deserted houses and stuff. Hilarious. They use about a gazillion rounds of ammunition and blow up two trucks, one barn and the house they were in. Only one guy survives. Duh. Big guy. Blond. Now I know where the inspiration for the werewolf in Prisoner of Azkaban came from. Yuck.

I had this really boring class today. I was mesmerised. I could not take my eyes away from the prof (except when I was reading Churchill's biography or Outlook). His upper lip was completely hidden by a thick curtain of hair. His face is really small and he has a balding head. His most prominent feature on his face is his moustache. And it is really funny. Imagine a thick blanket of hair curving over a guy's upper lip till it almost reaches his lower lip. Weird. He looks a little like Thompson and Thomson. It's been a while since I read Tintin. I "louved" Captain Haddock's curses.

Have to get back to work. Yeah. WORK.

no classes yet

I came here on monday thinking I'll have a presentation to attend on Monday and 2 classes on Tuesday. It's past Wednesday and I HAVE NOT HAD ANY CLASSES SO FAR!! It makes me so mad. I have had absolutely nothing to do. I could have stayed at home. They 'rescheduled' the classes at the last minute. That is probably admin speak for "the profs overslept and couldn't be bothered to come to class". At 2pm. Gah!

Gah! seems like a very European thing to say. I don't know why I think that. Maybe because Poirot was the person I heard/read saying it. And nobody is more European than Poirot. Maybe Rupert Everett but he is more Ernest than anything else. (If you didn't get that, go read Oscar Wilde). If you write an entire sentence within brackets, does the period come within the closing bracket or outside it? Was the previous sentence right or should it have been ".. or without?" ?

These past 3 days have been very fulfilling in a very "I'm so jobless" kinda way. I have slept an average of 10 hours a day and have seen 2 movies a day. On Monday I saw The Family Guy and Boondock Saints (both 4 on a scale of 0(ugh) to 5(brilliant)); on Tuesday, I saw Dog soldiers (0) and 25 Hours (3.75) and on wednesday, The Breakfast Club (2.9) and A Clockwork Orange (sometimes -100 and sometimes 3) and I have just one thing to say - Stanley Kubrik is one twisted, creepy and maybe brilliant SOB. I also read some 4 magazines, 2 comics, 1 novel and 1 biography. All in all, a good time was had. Like a mini holiday after a long vacation. Not that I had a very long vacation, but still... Even then, it makes my blood boil to think that I could have had 3 more days at home if they had told us earlier that they were going to reschedule. Damn admin jerks!

Anyway, I have 2 submissions coming up in the next two days, so maybe now I'll go and do something productive. Maybe.

back

That was one looong trip, but this time I had the side upper berth; definitely better than the 3rd tier. There was a lot of food. I had not brought any, too lazy to carry stuff and it turned out that it was a good thing that I didn't. Ecerybody else had brought food - there was puliyodarai, lime rice, curd rice, rotis, aloo, some kinda beans, chips, paratas and lots of other stuff that I don't remember. Everybody ate well. Some stuff had gone bad by dinner, and went out of the window. We ended up playing cards for a really long time. It was great fun.

Anyway, back in Bhub. It was really hot when I get here in the morning, almost 3 hours late. Damn Eastern Railways. This marks the end of good coffee for me for a long time. Good cheap coffee in any case. There is always Cafe COffee Day right out side, where I can get good cappuchino for Rs.20 plus VAT. Which I did, this afternoon. The bespectacled waiter guy greeted me like an old friend. Perhaps their profit margins had been squeezed beacuse of my week long absence. They are selling Tantra type T shirts there.

I saw Family Guy today, post lunch. Hilarious stuff. And after my Coffee Day trip, I saw Boondock Saints. I liked it. Sorta like The Four Just Men, only more blood. Edgar Wallace made all the righteous killing sound very clean and bloodless. This seemed more real. Anyway, decent movie. I didn't like the reunion with the father part, but whatever. Willem Dafoe is brilliant.

Nothing else; two classes tomorrow and back to the grind soon. I have midterms just after Diwali. Sadistic admin jerks.

I really really miss being back home. What I do like here is that i can talk in tamil and very few people understand. It's a great way to make fun of people in public without them catching on. They'll know you are making fun of them but what you say sounds like double dutch to them.

Tada.

back soon

It's over too soon. Going back to Bhubaneshwar tomorrow. 20 hours in 2nd class sleeper. 3 tier. Some more staring at the roof of the train. Or is it ceiling?

Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to whine about the impending trip back: you'll get that after the trip; it's not about my time here: you already know most of it; it's not about my very cute nieces; it's about the latest Backstreet Boys video.

They have hit rock bottom and started digging. It is pain, torture and ugh of unparalleled proportions.

The sister and I were watching VH1 this morning when I was having my breakfast. There was Jessica Simpson killing yet another classic: this time, the song was These Boots Are Made FOr Walking, formerly by Nancy Sinatra. They actually had the audacity to use this song in the soundtrack of The Dukes of Hazzard. As if the movie wasn't bad enough.

Then I left to bathe when I heard the sister call me. SHe pointed to the TV and said, "Have you seen this?". I thought that it was yet another rock band making fun of boybands. This is getting a little old. But it wasn't. It was the Backstreet Boys. All of them. Hanging out of a convertible. Looking decades older than they biologically could. Looking like shit. With long hair, all of them and grungy clothes. They were doing a parody of rock videos - complete with the guitar breaking, the blonde groupies, jumping around like morons, and all that. If their earlier songs and videos were car wrecks, this one was a nuclear accident. The kind that brings about total annihilation of life on earth. The stuff that killed dinosaurs. That bad.

We watched with morbid facination; like when there is an accident on the highway and you cannot help but look at all the blood and glass and mangled steel even though you know if you doo see it you will want to puke or pass out.

Will see you all the day after tomorrow from Bhubaneshwar. G'nite.

almost over

The vacation is almost done. Now I don't want to go back.

While at the doctor's waiting room for 2 hours, I read The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth. It was an amazing, but disturbing book, along the lines of To Kill a Mocking Bird. All the more disturbing because it is mostly true, almost completely historical. Some scary stuff.

It was about persecution of the Jews in America during the Second World War. Most books talk about Jews in Europe and persecution by the Nazis, whenever the 2ndWW is mentioned. This book was about anti-semetism in the US of A during the same time concentration camps were being set up in East Europe. Not anti semetism of the same type; but painful to those subject to it never the less.

And now, BBC Hardtalk has the author of The Colour Purple talking about how blacks still have it really bad in the USA and about poverty of both blacks and white there.

It is weird that both happened on the same day. I have grown up very protected and free. The only discrimination I have faced is because I am a girl and I have not faced much of that. I just don't like being lumped in one category and expected to act in a particular way just because of my uh.. anatomy. ANyway, I have never had much trouble because of that. I have had a very easy life. Sorta boring, true; but keep in mind the ancient chinese proverb, (All old proverbs that are a little twisted and seem badly translated end up being Ancient Cninese!), "May you live in interesting times!".

Thought it was worth a mention.

dune

Who has read the Litany Against Fear?

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear - From Frank Herbert's Dune Series

I was thinking about Dune and I remembered this. Good stuff, Dune.

the 'rents

The parents did a sorta interview now. With me. They are apparently worried that I'll fuck up my interviews with my bad attitude, terrible posture and expressionless face.

ugh.

Going to sleep. Have a general check up tomorrow. Just what I want to do. Spend the penultimate day of my last vacation in a stinky hospital full of pointy things and evil sadistic white coats. *run screaming*

G'nite.

la la la...

I couldn't think of a topic. obviously.

I don't have anything to say. I saw Rush Hour 2 last night. Hilarious junk. My mother walked off after the first 5 minutes. She just couldn't take it.

I told my 10 yr old cousin that I would use junk instead of shit. I think junk is really cute. When it's coming from a 10 yr old. From me, I don't really know.

Imagine saying, "What junk!" or a "Load of junk" or just "JUnk!" Weird.

It rained all of yesterday. It was awful outside. Chennai was not built to withstand water. WIth a little more than 5 hours of rain, there was 2 feet of water on the roads and autos and premier padminis and ne118s had stopped on the road.

Since I don't seem to be in a writing mood, I'm going to post a mail I had written on this topic on Nov 1, 2002 to my family e-group.

yesterday was an interesting day.

last exam got over. went to a friend's house with another friend. saw parts of fantasia, argued on the merits and demerits of seinfeld, frasier and other earth-shattering stuff. then it started raining. and it rained and then kept raining. we kinda decided to stay the night there, then my friend remembered that she was wearing her contact lenses and couldn't sleep with them on.(why not? i have, and suffered thereafter) so she pursuaded(?) me, that for the sake of her eyes (and for world peace) we'd trudge back home. and that we did.

picture this. dirty madras. dirty madras after almost 4 hours of nonstop rain- madras under a couple of feet of water. up to my thighs in some places. we saw some kids having a lot of fun in the water and figured it couldn't be all that bad. until somebody mentioned ditches, open manholes and the general state of roads in madras. so we set out on our journey back home. the first hundred yards or so was wet wet wet. up to our knees wet. then we got to the main road and it was total chaos. the road was packed. auto rickshaws, cars , buses, bikes and a lorry that just had to go the other way. i will never understand people. throw in a few cars which had
stalled, were deserted and some wet morose cows and every thumb on the horn and you will understand what it was.

the 2 of us decided that instead of holding up traffic we'd take an auto and we chanced upon an empty one, with a very garrulant driver. according to him, only 1 in a million auto guys were honest and we had chanced upon the only one in town. we were also entertained to stories about his two daughters, 3 sons, several grandchildren,fuel prices and tamilnadu politics in general. we humoured him with "ok" and "uhuhh" periodically but i dont think it would have made a difference if we hadn't been there either. anyway half way through, the auto stopped too, we helped push it to a corner of the road and waded our way back.

wet, cold and dirty, home never seemed more inviting.and it was only the first day of vacation.

by the way, we got a yummy dinner at my friend's house, so 'twasnt all bad.

going to ranipet tomorrow. will keep you posted.
bye
meera

what do you think?

honeymoon over.

I wrote this long thing and decided not to post it. Basically I'm already bored of chennai. I kinda like being away from family and not many of my friends are here any more. I have visited only one since I came here. Had fun with her but I want to go back; not because I like bhubaneshwar; it's just very stressful here. I am having better food and meeting all my cousins and everything but I have absolutely no private space here and I need my few hours of alone time everyday if I am spend the rest of the day with people - even if it is with people I like.

Feeling sorta down. Have you ever wondered if you are clinically depressed? I'm in a sorta yoyo mood - up one minute, down another. I hate being me at times like this.

another day, no sleep yet

Ala - no idea what I meant by that. Oops.

I hate it when people delete comments. Leaves me very curious to know what was so bad/unkind/unparliamentary/too nice/praise-ish that I/we couldn't read it.

Yesterday was fun too. In a way.

I got all cleaned up, in a manner of speaking. Unless you are a girl, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Or maybe a "metrosexual". I think men who volunteer to get their chest/back/whatevers waxed are masochistic bastards who deserve anything they get. I mean, they actually go through that horrrifying pain even though they are not socially expected to do it. I sometimes wish I was born in the Neandrathal age or as a Chimpanzee and hair on the female of the species was not considered a sign of the major UGH.

My face, if left to its own devices, would have more hair than most adult men. After tweezing, threading and waxing, it looks all shiny and hairless. And only I know the pain, the PAIN I go through to look socially acceptable.

After the movie Cast Away was released, while people were debating many aspects of that movie, I was wondering how I would look if went 7 years without my tweezer, wax strips and parlour. THAT is how much I am affected by the unnatural acts forced on me by society!

After reading what I have written above, I have come to the conclusion that I have no shame. Yippee.. One less thing to be worried about.

Anyway, after the parlour, I went out for dinner with 2 aunts, 2 uncles, the parental units, the sister and grand mother and great aunt. It was good fun. And great food. ANd weird/interesting conversations. Every time my father started a controversial topic (which was every time he opened his mouth to speak), my grandmother would shut him and say the tamil equivalent off "Not here, people will hear, wait till we go home, have you no brains?". It was hilarious. ANd everything he said about govt. policy, politics, religion got the same reaction. But once the food came, we sorta concentrated on it and spoke only between mouthfuls. Damn good food. If you are in Chennai, check out Casablanca @ TTK Road.

After that, I went to my grandmother's place, where I, my sister, 2 cousins, aunt and dog saw all three Lord of the Rings continuously. Awesome stuff. My 10 yr old cousin and I were speaking the dialogues. It was so much fun.

ANyway, I haven't slept at all, and I'm going shopping with my mother in a while. I will probably feel the pain of lack of sleep in the afternoon. Yeehaw! But it's not as if I have plans, so I guess I could sleep in later.

ANd later today, I have to subject myself to torture of unparalleled proportions. Of deforesting my arms. I bet you did not want to or need to know that. FUN. DO not cross me tonight. I am not responsible for whatever I throw at you for annoying me.

Has anybody seen Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara? My grandmother wants to go. Will I sleep, die of pain, suffer the mercies of bad acting, bad dialogues or will I enjoy a historical piece?

after 1 day..

I am so tired. I feel like my brain is being squeezed out of my tear ducts. Not nice.

Metlin - Hahahahahahahaha. CHant that nonsense? Right. "babality animality brutality fatality " wha..?

Ala - Soon.

Yesterday was fun. I had had 3 coffees by 7 Am and I was crawling on the ceiling. I woke Tara up and she freaked! She was so annoyed, and I just couldn't stop talking. SHe said, several times, "shut up!" and "who are you and what have you done to my sister?". WHatever. I visited one cousin, spent time with my "cho cute" niece, helped her make a mess of the house and then visited my grandmother and cousins and aunt a short distance away. I bugged my lil cousin off the computer with "I come here after 4 months and you would rather spend time with your stupid games than with me!!". He looked horrified and then came down with me. I really didn't think it would be that simple. Then we had lunch and saw Xmen. Tara slept, and got up only to drool whenever Wolverine is on sreen. That girl is desperate, I swear.

We then went to a recently married cousin's home and met her sister- and parents-in-law. What fun. We had a loud arguement with her motherin law about the new rules in anna university about dress codes, cell phones and other shit like that and I think she was a little disgusted by our too liberal views on male-female relationships, clothes and the like. Her daughter teaches at a certain college that I went to; I didn't know that and proceeded to trash that college and it's teaching staff. Open mouth, enter foot. Exit Meera.

The cousins went up and chatted a little - we should do that mor eoften. I didn't spend enough time with them. Then I went to another aunt's place for Golu and then out to dinner at the Great Kabab Factory. I have many insights from that episode.

1. Don't take 3 yr old kids out for dinner to an expensive place when they anve a) not slept enough; b) not eaten before that; c) both. What fun. Uttara kept screaming her head off for ktti chappathi and refused o eat anything they brought her. She finally had one small roti and dal. She is really a damn cute kid.
2. Vegetarian kababs are sorta weird. Not that I have ever had the other kind but they all sorta tasted the same, either panneer-y or aloo-y;but the buttermilk was yummy.

more later. I'm going out for dinner now.

home.

Even vending machine coffee tastes better in Chennai. Seriously.

The first thing I did when I got off the train was to buy coffee. It is thicher, has less water and even smells like coffee. If you have not had watery, sewage-like Nescafe or Lipton coffee, then you will have no idea what I am taking about. The great thing about Coffee Day vending machines is that you can control the amount of sugar that goes into your coffee. Why haven't Nescafe and HLL not figured out yet that not everybody likes their coffee with as much sugar as a boiled confectionary? Anyway, as I was thinking all this and loving my nice strong coffee, I forgot to watch where I was stepping and stepped into one of those large spaces that are so randomly strewn in Central, just before the Chennai Central Welcoming You board. By space, I mean empty, where there should have been concrete. Anyway, I twisted my ankle/foot and almost fell. It was one of those funny moves that people make when they know that they are going to fall unless they do something drastic - my something drastic was a little shake, stumble, bend forward and jerk and put my other foot down as hard as I could. It worked! I didn't even spill all my coffee. Yep. That went through my head as I limped to the car behind the oblivious driver. I still had most of the coffee left, and I could always lick the rest of it off my hand if I got desperate. Got into the car and left for home. On the way out of there, I noticed the CHennai General GOvernament Hospital. It is huge and looks spit shining new. It was good to know that there was a place that I could have gone nearby if I had broken my foot.

GOt back without much further ado, and my great-aunt woke up to let me in; said hi to her and my grandmother, let them go back to sleep and went to raid the kitchen. Didn't really feel like eating so made myself more coffee. Unfortunately, there was only enough coffee for one cup so you'll have to wait. Yummy. Filter Coffee rocks.

The train journey was a study of the train ceiling. The dirty, ugly, too close to my face ceiling. I wanted to sleep when we had gotten on (7.30 ish), so I got in to the top (3rd!!) bunk and slept. I got up at 10 and they refused to let me down, claiming no space. So I got my mp3 player out and listened to music and zoned out again. GOt up again at 12 and they still refused to let me down. I slept again, read a little, listened to more music. I'm glad I came prepared. I listened to all 178 tracks in the 20 hour trip. Yay me. ANyway, I finally got down at around 10 pm. I spent more time horizontal than otherwise this trip. It was awful. My back ached and I felt really weird - zombie like. Had 2 spoons or rather fingerfulls of "Veg Pulav Rs.20" and almost died. It had gone bad. SO had half a packet of Parle G Tiger biscuits and listened in to other people's conversations. Mostly people making fun of each other. One of the other girls (3 in total) who had come asked me what song I was listening to and I sorta sang out "My friend's got a girlfriend and I hate that bitch"; she looked horrified. I asked her why and she said that until this train trip, she had never heard people swear so openly before. Poor thing. I felt bad for her. I just grinned and shut up. See, I know when not to shoot my mouth off.

Anyway, nothing much happened. I was looking out through the window at the stars. I recognised Orion. That is the only constellation I can recognise. I used to be able to recognise the big and little dippers but I don't remember what they look like. There was this set of 5 stars that looked like a ladle and this other set of 6 that looked like a 6 pointed star. I though that was really cute. Nobody else did.

How do you tell someone that they have terrible B.O.? I tried to stick my head out throught the bars of the window, but my head was a trifle too big for that, not figuratively speaking. I am a very well grounded person. Do not laugh.

It is taking me a while to get used to this keyboard. I keep hitting capslock.

Nothing else to say.

We met the darjeeling band (Grunjee Morfins) at the station yesterday morning. They looked diappointingly normal.

The Indian Ocean concert was good. After the first 3 songs, everything else sounded the same to me. They sounded very good, just repetitive. Except for Kandisa and Bandein, I didn't recognise anything. They played the latter twice. The crowd went mad. Good stuff.

What do I do now? I think I'll go watch TV till my aunt and uncle come back from their walk. TV!! Haven't watched TV in months. I'll probably end up watching BBC, NDTV, Discovery or NGC. Wait, they might have History. Ok I'm going now. I love my History.

Tada folks. More things as they happen.

lately..

.. I have been very busy. Too busy for you.

Metlin.. You need help. Mortal Kombat was BAD. Yes, capital letters. Though the fight sequences were good.

We have been having our "Fest" - In common parlance, it's a "B-School Fest"; I personally feel that it sounds very dumb. It should ideally be called "We will do anything for some very expensive publicity" or "A whole buch of unrelated and semi-related activities followed by a lot of beer" or "I am sick of classes; let's spend an insanely large amount of money and have some fun and a lot of headache". I guess they thought these were too long and went with "Xpressions 2005".

My college has this really bad habit of having an X in everything. Xpressions, IlluminatiX, maXim, Xfin and blah blah blah. It's annoying. It's one of those things that go to annoying without ever being cute. I think it is because I feel that misspelling things on purpose is a crime - I just hate hate hate it when people write rulez, rox, and crap like that and now I am surrounded by such nonsense.

Maybe this is bothering me just a wee bit too much.

What is the right usage for "Mayhap"?

Last night was great. There was a rock competition. Not the sort that people throw rocks at each other - they are called Parliament sessions.

Generally rock competitions that I have been to are awful - they are filled with lead singers with fake accents, drummists who think drum rolls are "kewl", long haired, bare chested, guitarists who can play only Hotel California and Nothing Else Matters.

This time was mercifully different. The first band played a pretty decent "Whereever I May Roam"; though their lead singer did not sound like hetfield at all, they still sounded damn good. The second band was as bad as all the others were cumulatively good. BAD BAD BAD. Their "Original Comp" Dhokha was bad, but it was still better than their rape of Hotel California. They all came to stage wearing identical white banians and blue jeans. UGH. And so it started.

The third band was AWESOME. They were called Bodhi Tree, from XLRI and they played Joe Satriani's Summer Song, Cranberries's Animal Instinct and Pearl Jam's Black. It all almost sounded identical to the original. BEE-OO-TI-FUL. Vaishu, your friend Shambhavi was the lead singer and she got best vocalist. Their other singer, Narayan was also awesome. AND they made the guitars speak. I'm running out of adjectives. They did Joe Sat. Recognizable Joe Sat. Need I say more? They had a female drummer. The testoterone affected in the audience was yelling "we love your drummer" at the end of their sound check and after their first piece they were yelling "we love you all". It was very corny but it got the message across. Their original comp was about how their mess always served potatoes. Hilarious. stuff. We could all relate. they got best original comp for "having fun on stage and writing about stuff that happen to them". They played "XL ki kudiyan" at the end, asked for by popular request.

The fourth band was also great. They were a bunch of recently graduated school kids from Darjeeling and played the best damn crash metal I have ever heard. Their lead singer went from MHz to Hz within the space of one word! Not that we ever understood what he said. The band was great. Their original composition was called "Dark-cula" - about Dracula. duh.

The next band seemed semi professional. They were from Calcutta and their original composition was called "Kurukshetra". It started with "Yada yada ya dharmasya.." was was heavy rock, full of angst and pain and fights and stuff. Too much. But they were also good. They got second best original composition.

The judges were one guy from Silk Route and part of Indian Ocean. Indian Ocean are playing tonight. They are supposed to be good. Let's see how good. They jammed after the competition and played old Silk Route songs. Didn't like any. There were some people in the crowd who were having fun. Some you win, some you lose.

Later that night, Narayan, Jishnu and Bharat (XLRI band) played and sang for us while they were waiting for 4.30am. It was fun. Good, fun people.

My yahoo messenger has two new people on it. It's good to meet new people; even if one of them is a friend of a friend whom you have already met before.

A lot of people said a lot of nice things about this campus. I didn't think it was a big deal. I guess familiarity does breed comtempt. But was hilarious when the guys from FMS complimented our mess food. Delhi University can't be that sad!

This post has been mostly about the rock competition, but lots of other things also happened. A hilarious video was shot. Somebody teach me how to upload videos and you can see it for yourselves.

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