11. Musings on the newyear eve....

OMG!!..it's 00:21am....the first hour of the last day of the last week of the last month of 2007...just a few more hours to go...for another year to fade away...Now as I sit here on my bed, with my lappy, contemplating on the previous one year...I realise.... I havent blogged at all this month ...gotta cook up something fast...

What better way to end an year, than to venture to do something I havent ever done before! So here I am, making an attempt to do on-the-spot-blogging.Ya I know it doesnt sound all that great, but for the lazy-bum that I am....it IS a BIG thing...especially considering the enormous amount of effort I normally put in to create a single post! The monotonous laborious work of drafing a hard copy manuscript in my diary; editing it; making a soft copy in MSword; editiing it; re-editiing it; re-re-editing it...and finally, after many painstaking hours or days or sometimes even weeks....a post finally gets churned out...phew!!

Hmmm...so what should I write about??hmmm??aaa...my eyes wander around the room aimlessly....until it rests on my lil 'notice board'.There, on a corner, lies the 'LOST' post-it-note where I have jotted down the things I have lost over the past 1 semester. Well... these are the things that I've lost over the past 4 months....okay..only the ones that i remeber have been laid down here...

1.A gold earing(this particular earring kept on falling off my ears many a times and I kept on finding it back, until one day, finally it decided to ditch me forever...later I came to find out that the 'chechi' who sweeps the hostel had found my earring on the ground but thinking that it might be an imitation one,(due to the patches of white gold on it)....she dumped it in the waste bin:(...my poor earring is now reportedly resting in the dump pit of the NIT ladies' hostel….sigh :(

2.A small gold star of my gold bracelet(well i hadnt noticed its loss for quite some days...when finally when I noticed, I realized it too might have found its resting place like my earring, and i never bothered to search for it...)

3.A 5-movie containing dvd(infact it was presented to me by a friend:(...shhh dont tell him that its lost...hope he doesnt read this...:P)

4.A brand new t-shirt(have no clue as to where it disappeard!)

5.My lovely party-wear skirt...(ok..this one was not lost by me...but by a crazy who borrowed it to wear...hmpf!!she still hasnt replaced it...hope she reads this...:D )

6.Hmmm...oh yeah! and I've lost one password too...the one to my internet banking account...(Not a very good thing to lose, I must advise...Gosh! the hell lot of trouble it created to me on the day of my registration day!!)

7.'v' pens, 'w' pencils, 'x' erazers, 'y' sharpeners, 'z' rulers...(where v,w,x,y,z are arbitrary constants, whose value I've lost count of...)

....the list doesnt end there...but voila...another blog is ready... time to log off...cya!

Happy 2008!!!
(Hope I'll tend to lose less things this year!!!keeping fingers crossed ;))

10. Am I invisible or what???

So what if I am 5’1”? What if I am just 43kilos? Ok I know I am short and skinny(after all geniuses always come in small packets…can't help it)…but just give it a thought…should that make me invisible?

Come on okay, its not just once or twice that this has happened; it did not happen some ages ago –it happened a few years back, but then again it happened a month ago and yet again it happened a couple of days back…and given the present rate, the odds are that it will happen again within the next 24hrs or so (omg! studying ‘probability and statistics’ continuously for the past 3 months seems to have taken its toll on me). And again it didn’t happen at a particular place or time –it has happened way back at home, at school, at church and to my horror , I find it happening here too…in NITC

Many are the instances when people have failed to notice me when I’m very much present right in front of them. For some reason or the other, their sensory organs fail to detect the presence of a human being in flesh and blood in their vicinity, and they just look straight through me or walk by me (how..rude..hmpf!)….wanna see a few examples???Voila…

Case1
Location: NITC
Time: nearly 4 yrs back
It was my bro’s first day in college. We were all helping him out to arrange his stuffs in his new room(yup, I did enter the guys’ hostel(wink)) Then one of his roommates –a northy guy–began distributing sweets (his father apparently owned a sweet-shop and consequently he had a large pile of sweet boxes neatly arranged in his shelf). He gave the sweets to all –to each and everyone present in the room…except me –despite of the blatant fact that I was standing very next to him. Right before my eyes he closed the sweet packet; kept it safely in his cupboard and went about doing his work. Everyone in the room munched on the piece of delicacy, while I was left to watch them with watering mouth(boy…I was hungry too..)
So am I invisible or what? Or does the guy have some kind of ‘selective-blindness’?

Case2
Location: CTC(Calicut theological college)
Time: 1 year back
Every Sunday, after the service, we are provided with lunch (kanji –my favourite…yumm…) This particular Sunday, due to some special occasion, cakes were also being distributed. And guess what happened….those sitting on either side of me got the cake, while poor me was again left alone.
And I ask myself again…am I invisible or what?

Case3
Location: coffee shop
Time: sometime in the near past
During break, I walk up to this heavily crowded coffee-shop near the library and I manage to squeeze my way in through the mass.As my frame is custom built for this, it didn’t require much effort from my part to get through them. I get to the front of the counter and place my orders –“chetta 1 cappuchino and 1 hot-chocolate”…who is gonna hear me?... as can be very well predicted, the guy on the left of me gets his food, and the one on the right too gets his stuff…Ah! What to say more…the guy standing way behind me also gets his stuff, while I was left there –still waving and shouting, yet unseen and unheard!... Out of desperation I ask a former class-mate of mine standing nearby, whether he could see me or not. As if to add insult to injury, the guy pretends to look straight through me as though looking for the source of the voice…grrr…I had to ask the fellow@&^#*$... what is it with me and food??....and again... am I invisible or what??

No, it’s not just between me and food…

Case4
Location: School (HAC)
Time: 3 yrs back
As was the prevalent custom, during the week before the exam, I bunked a few classes. The principal, apparently finding no other work to do, summoned all the bunkers to her ‘royal court’ for ‘trial’. All the ‘miscreants’ were asked to give their defence. One by one they gave their in-situ concocted cock-and-bull story of having a head/tooth/back/ENT ache or of the wedding of a non-existent bro/sis/cousin. But suddenly something got into me –the angel in me(remember the funny looking lil angel with a cute halo on the head shown in the cartoons) popped up and told me not to lie…I know it wasn’t such a big deal or anything, but I stubbornly refused to lie. So that meant I was going to tell her that I bunked just like that…I was hoping against hope that she wouldn’t ask me…the second person next to me gave her excuse…I was praying…Oh! I wish I could turn invisible!...the person next to me too gave her excuse…God!...and…and that was it. She didn’t ask me. It was as if I was really invisible to her.
Was I invisible? Or was it divine intervention?...

Okay forget all these…push them all aside… we may be able to give them all some logical/divine explanations…but nothing will be as bizarre as this one…this is the multi!

Case5
Location: in front of DB 110(civil classroom)
Time: a week ago
During break, all the girls of our class and the neighbouring classes gathered around for the daily course of chit-chattering and gossiping. Crazy was standing in one corner blabbering away and I went behind her and knocked her on the head…She turned to her left, then to her right, again to her left and right, turned a full circle….and asked “aara enne adichathu?(who hit me?)” grrr…

OMG!….AM I REALLY INVISIBLE??? :O

9. The Game continues.....

This is total crap. DUMB I’ll say. To be frank, I wouldn’t have ventured to write this post if not for obvious reasons. Well…no prizes for guessing the reasons…Ya, I have yet again been affected by the looso-musia-syndrome. Dearth of topics to write about, coupled with the constant nagging of fella-bloggers who had tagged me eons ago compelled me to commit this act. And of course, a little publicity will never hurt.…so here I am, having finally joined the... er…what was it??...ya the “8RF” club.

Yup..so I’ve been Tagged by the devil and the game continues(grumble)...

Here are the rules:
1.Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2.Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3.Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

So here goes the Eight random facts about myself:

#1. I’m one li’l lazy bump. My laziness knows no bounds. It can take any form ranging from waiting at length for someone to pass by to take that li’l notebook from my cupboard to postponing this post by nearly 2 months….
But I simply love bugging people(read my testimonials ppl…). I bug people irrespective of their caste, creed, colour, sex, sect, age etc…etc…etc.

#2. The less tastier the food supplied to me is, the more I tend to eat. Believe it or not, I gained 5kilos by the end of my first year at college, surviving only on the mess food(yuk!..).Weird…Ain’t I?

#3. I’m a Hindi-challenged person. No matter how hard I try, Hindi and I never get along(sniff…sniff…) during the past one year I have witnessed many a northy friends of mine fleeing the scene when I start jabbering in ‘hindi’ :(

#4. I’m basically a night-bird. My grey cells seem to get activated only after the stroke of 12, which is why many of my blogs are posted after midnight.

#5. I’m not afraid of darkness; nor of heights, roller coaster rides; of ghosts, zombies, demons, draculas, haunted stuffs, horror films/books etc…but a tiny li’l spidy can scare me off my wits!Ya, i'm a lil arachnophobic....

#6. I hate dressing up. I find it a great burden when I am supposed to get dressed up for a wedding or a birthday party. I’m most comfortable in my bro’s shabby old T-shirts and shorts.

#7. Till 9th standard I hadn’t read much, other than Tinkle, Archies, Balarama, Balabhumi etc.(Of course, I’m not talking about text books). But now, having discovered the wonderful world of words, I cant live without books.(Of course again, I’m not talking about text books..i can do very well without ‘em).

#8. As a child, I have always wanted to be an astronaut –conquering the space; being another Kalpana Chawla; when even the sky cannot be the limit…Aaah!!.. But here I am, now stranded in the Civil-dept, not knowing where to step next…Somebody help me!!!

Phew! now that it is done with...lemme go bug 8 other people...

Crazy-one crazy gal who writes so damn well if she wants to....and she's got this collection of yet unpublished poems.
Kim-Hmm...a blogger in the making; had a nice time helping him out with his blog.he's got a lotf weird topics to discuss about..
Garfy-he writes kindf philosophical stuffs..but worth reading though
Nematho-She's got a damn good blog
APJ-he's disappeared after putting up one post...but a damn gud photographer he is..

Tito- ever heard of "mlogging"?just hav a look at his b(m)log...this is one of the few b(m)loggers i ve met who m(b)logs with such a high frequency.

PP-hmm...funny guy,writes well-actually i duno him all that well.
Hipo-Well..she hasnt started blogging yet..but comon...i hav to get 8 ppl..

Tag on ppl.....

8. I still haven't learned.....

There goes me blog-hopping again, hoping to get some new ideas, with ma darling Muse…and I spot, in one of the blogs, a post entitled “What I have learned”…

I'VE LEARNED that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is to be someone who can be loved....The rest is up to them.

I'VE LEARNED that no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.

I'VE LEARNED that we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

I'VE LEARNED that either you control your attitude or it controls you…

………………..and blah blah……… and blah blah….(if you are jobless, for more of them…(http://arunrajagopal.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-i-have-learned.html)

Oh! How touching!! How romantic!!! How senti!!!! How inspiring!!!! How so boring!

So buddy, what have ya learned from your life so far?...eh? –I ask myself.

Hmmm….. I start off my “hmm…” chant as usual and scan my brain frantically for what I HAVE REALLY LEARNED FROM LIFE SO FAR? ...??..???...????...????? and more question marks...
_______________________________blank :(

Oh wait! Got it! Wanna know what I’ve learned? huh?... ll tell ya something else…What I still haven’t learned –---from all those innumerable so called “life-experiences”… no matter how much I’ve tried… no idea whether I’ll ever learn them at all, in ma entire life…

I(still)’VENT LEARNED even after undergoing through scores of torturous exam-eve-blues(when I come face to face with the bitter reality that I’m totally blank for the next day's exam) that I should quit procrastinating my daily lessons.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that my just-a-2-minutes-break-for-scrap-checking will eventually turn out to be a 2 hour long masala of chatting, scrapping and blogging session and that it would finally churn a 4-digit telephone bill the next month.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that no matter how boring the long vacations prove to be they still seem to be appealing once class starts; and no matter how dumb the classes are, they miraculously transform into “those good old classes that I miss now” once vacations start.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that it’s mandatory(or rather common-sense) to carry an umbrella with you when going out during the rainy season, as a result of which I go about begging people to share their umbrellas and end up getting myself as well as the large-hearted-umbrella-sharer completely drenched.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that I shouldn’t attempt to act like grown-ups. No matter how hard I try to behave in a matured way, I end up making a total fool of myself –hardly understanding the ‘adult-talks’ of fella people and bulbing often at the “double-meanings intended”.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that all those musical nights and other craps held in the open-air-theatre will invariably turn out to be a big BORE. Hence I’ll be running to all those 101 events in the OAT only to go there and crash un-peacefully on one of ma friend’s shoulders, amidst the 100 decibel speakers jarring from all sides.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that library books are meant to be borrowed; read and returned before the due date and not just for the sake of increasing the stud-look of my bookshelf. Needless to say, now I’ve become a regular donor to the college library treasury.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED no matter how much I eat I’m not gonna grow any fatter, which is why I can often be seen around hogging every now and then, whatever edible, I find here and there, hoping for a miracle.

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that the more number of pens and pencils that I buy, the more number of them I keep loosing. Last year, I must have bought at least 30 pens… can’t help it…my pens keep ditching me and run away. :(

I(still)’VENT LEARNED that it’s high time that I throw away my cutie-cutie cuddly teddy-bears and soft toys that have ‘grown up’ with me and have been with me so far(am in my late teens now…sniff..sniff)

………………..and blah blah……… and blah blah…

But one thing that I did learn now –right now- is…

NEVER BLOG JUST FOR THE SAKE OF EVADING THE BOREDOM OF CERTAIN JOBLESS PEOPLE, AT THEIR REQUEST…or else I’ll end up writing total nonsense like this.

7. On mopping the floor

The sudden ditching of a household by a house-maid can have a great impact(disastrous) on the lives of the poor souls of the house. The impact would be greater if you happen to be the only female kid around and especially if you have reached that age when people classify you as a ‘matured lady’(:-/) and double especially if this happens so coincidentally in the middle of a 3-month long vacation when you have officially declared yourself to be utterly jobless(moan!…I had to admit that!). Now.. now..let’s not grumble and groan about the throes of household chores…look at the bright side… Such mishap should instead be considered as an excellent opportunity for discovering those hidden talents lurking inside of you!(height of optimism!).

Being the lazy bones that I am(remember garfy!), I try my best to keep myself aloof from any forms of housework. If at all I am cornered by some work, I choose the least laborious, the least time consuming and most important of all… the least yukiest of work(yuk!!).

But this time, the case is different. You see…Mom gets pissed with me for no fault of mine(after all I am always the pavam, innocent one :D) and I badly want her to give me permission to see POC-3 along with two of my friends(the imp n the devil) the next day. Gotta get into her good books asap…and nothing pleases a tired, overworked Momma like a willing, obedient daughter offering her to lend a helping hand.

So donning the sweetest of my smile, I approach Mom and declares that I’ll be mopping the dirty, mud covered staircase and the adjoining sit-out, which apparently have had no contact with any sort of cleaning gadgets what-so-ever for over a week(thanks to the darned rains, and to those people who find their damn muddy foot-wares too precious to be left at the foot of the staircase).

I wait expecting a broad grin of gratefulness from her. But there came none… (hmm…gotta put more lather in the soap).Struggling to keep that smiling look on my face, I politely inquire about the location of the moping gadgets, about which she directs me briskly, in a very business-like manner(Still no sign of that grateful smile on her face…)

An old, weather-beaten, water-filled bucket in my left hand and a mopping rod in my gloved right hand – I stand on top of the staircase and scan the stairs one by one…one..two..three…….seventeen 30x90cm stairs in all…a total of 45,900sq.cm.+ the 36,450 sq.cm sit-out too…hmm….

First I switch off the front-door light –this way preventing any nosey neighbours from spying on me @ work. I start from the topmost stair…one dip of the moping rod in the lotioned water…and one swish on the floor(I expect a sparkling, speckless, spotless, stair like how those commercials show)but what really happens??O my gosh!!a flood of muddy water on the stairs!!too bad the commercials never show the entire thingy…you gotta squeeze out the extra water before swabbing(hmpf!!)

Second attempt –I carefully squeeze out all the extra water and make another swab...ok...that’s better! but one swish alone doesn’t do the magic…have to do 2-3 swabs and that too exerting much pressure on the floor…its not that easy a task u know…u see this mopping rod in the discussion is quite long/heavy(longer than me…)and I am using a plastic cover as a glove too. I realise...you can’t get much grip with a plastic cover on a plastic rod especially if you are working with water. 

Okie..step 1 gets over somehow!!

Step 2(Oh!)

Step 3(puff!)

Step 4(pant!!)

Step 5(hmpf!!)

Step 6(grrr…..)

Step 7(groan!...)

Step 8(grumble!)

Step 9(aaargh!!!...this stubborn mud!!)

Step 10(aaargh again!!!...this dumb rod)

Step 11(now..now..dont be a whinny kid)

Step 12(gosh !! When will this be over!!??)

Step 13(hey chill!!..think about tmw’s POC)

Step 14 (hmpf again…me and my dumb ideas!!)

Step 15(chill… its not all that bad.)

Step 16(ya right! u can say that again!grr..again)

Step 17(pheeeeew!!!...............................finally!!!)

Hands on my hips, I scan the entire steps once again…Yipeee!!! I did it!!! Not so fast chinky…still half the work still remains…remember the sit-out??…oh yeah right…I make my way carefully up the stairs (shouldn’t spoil my mopped stairs).

Up the stairs I continue my swishing with the mop. Hey this is fun…not like the stairs…just gotta do left..ritght..left..right..left…trrang…er..what was that? I discover a big screw on the floor (not mine k??? mine are all still perfectly intact).Omg!! these people!! How careless can they get to be?? leaving dangerous things anywhere they want just like that!!Oh right ..and my bro claimed to have swept the floor earlier too..Ahaa..this is how he sweeps eh??

With another swish I sent that 2 inch ‘life-threatener’ flying out through the railings down to the garden. And another swish... Er..did something go wrong? My longer/heavier-than-me rod doesn’t seem to be that heavy now. My gaze moves from wherever it was down to the rod. Omg! the so-far-one-unit-mopping-rod has now become 2 separate units -a rod and a piece of rag…what happened??? Hmm… Now that explains the missing screw!!

Mom’s face comes to the forefront of my mind(gulp!)….closely followed by the next day’s POC(gulp again!)Aargh!!that’s scary!Shake it off!!..let’s finish off this crap now.

Pressing the tip of the rod hard against the cloth, I continue my left-right swishing, but with lesser amplitude. My sound receptors suddenly pick up the rumble of an approaching vehicle. It again senses the sound of the gates opening …Who could it be? What if it turns out to be some friend of mine? Worse ...what if it turns out to be a young handsome dude?(though I know the probability of it be precisely 0). Cant let whoever it is to see me in this clumsy way. I make a dash for the door; into the house; to the kitchen where Mom was(leaving the muddy-watered bucket where it was on the stairs…the ragged piece of cloth fell somewhere in the living room -that too in a non-unnoticable palce…and me still holding on to whatever was left of the rod..).When one is in a flight or fright or in this case a ‘chammal’ one hardly thinks of a broken mopping rod or POC or anything at all for that matter.

The visitor turns out to be an ‘old’ relative, and he leaves as hurriedly as he came(okay..so far so good…but wait…not so fast…lemme complete…)HE CAME WITH HIS PRECIOUS FOOTWARE ON, all the way up the stairs and then down, leaving my sparkling-clean steps back to their original state.. (Aargh!!!)…

Moral: Don’t spare the mopping-rod and spoil the POC.

Lesson learnt: Never take ‘mopping the front door staircase’ as a chore to please your Momma on a rainy day.

6. Gud ol’PCs

Ask me which is the class I’ll miss the most next year….I’ll say…PC. Ask me which is the most important of all the first year classes….I’ll say…PC. Ask me which is the class that provides both information and entertainment at the same time…. I’ll say…PC. Ask me which is the most idiotic of all classes…. I’ll say again…undoubtedly its PC ---ED(engineering drawing)being a close competitor though. Ask me….arey that’s enough of asking…now read on…

Ok, so what is this PC all about??? Well I guess it supposedly stands for Professional Communication---the one and only course which equips a budding engineer with the required communication and interaction skills which will fetch him/her an easy campus placement, GRE, CAT..and what not!!!

Whatever it is supposed to stand for and whatever its purpose of existence may be, I’ll say that it’s an indispensable part of our academic course… I mean…how else could we have managed to cope up with the rest of the btech courses??

For those non-NITians who happen to read this, let me explain…well this PC class of ours, because of its uniqueness, is not conducted in any normal classrooms. We have this ‘Bhaskara hall’ exclusively allocated for this subject. It’s kind of a seminar hall which accommodates two of our batches together, where we have these types of chairs with wooden writing boards attached to it--- these writing boards can be conveniently used, either for resting sleepy heads, or as scratch pads to scribble on- just in case you forgot to bring paper to play ‘cows n bulls’, or hey… it can even be used to keep your PC books on and write... in case you happen to bring your PC book…that is if you have a PC book at all!!!lol!

Making you thus acquainted with the settings of this much renowned class, let me move on to the actual classes…

The very first of our PC classes witnessed us, innocent-minds, racing for the front row, in order to facilitate the better perception and reception of the ‘great man’ and his even ‘greater lectures’…However, as the classes progressed, we were still racing…but this time it was for the back rows. Our translocation from the front rows to the back rows was so apparent, so strikingly notable that our ‘great man’ finally said “Sorry for the inconvenience… by next sem we’ll make arrangements for the extension of the hall further backwards”.

A quick inspection of the entire class reveals a wide variety of different facial expressions---the dumbstruck face of the one who cannot get either head or tail of what the proff is trying to achieve by his classes; the utterly bored face which seem to scream out-“yea dil mangee NO MORE of PCs”; the highly tensed face of the one who is unsure whether he/she will be able to finish off the next period’s assignment within this one hour; the exuberant face of the one who has just won a cows n bulls game; the invisible face of the one who has already crashed on the writing board---the place is just apt for anyone who is interested in researching on the diversity in human countenance.

Well, nothing would have been possible without our great ol’man. He is a real sport(er…irony intended). But it is really sad that none of us, including myself fail to recognise ‘aa full-sleevinullile kalakaaran’. But one thing I do appreciate is his attempt at making humour which hits the bulls-eye with a probability of about 0.01--- but sometimes it does hit--- he often advises his class, not to give more than one proxy for the same person –something which happens very often especially in his classes –and to wake up atleast during the attendance session –something which seldom happens.

Talking about PCs….now I understand the reason for my pathetic performance during the 2^nd sem…….hmmm…

No PCs => No time to complete assignments and tutorials => No time to get proper sleep => No source of entertainment to refresh my poor lil’brain => Reduction in efficiency => poor output => Low gpa.

Yup!...now I got it!!that’s why…hmmm…and all this while I have been blaming myself...poor me…

Gud ol’PCs…. miss you soo much…[,’)]

5. The Muse Returns!

Seconds pass by, minutes pass by, hours pass by, days pass by, weeks pass by, a month too passes by…WHAT!!! It has been that long?? And still no sign of him? Where the heck is he? How can I miss him for this long? How can he be such a ditcher? My friends have already started asking…what’s happening to you ? Why? Its really sad...how can I answer them all?? Can I tell them the truth? Survival without him is a matter of question…dying without him…dying…almost dead… my blog’s dying… O Muse! where art thou??

The state of a blogger who has nearly run out of ideas is a really miserable one. Cant express it in words. A large number of cases have been recently reported in quite a number of blogs(http://www.iamthereforeithinkalot.blogspot.com/) With the number of blogs in the net increasing progressively day by day,and thereby the Muse being kept busy, the matter is feared to go out of control. Timely action needs to be taken before this plague claims more lives. So here are some quick facts for you.

Scientific name: looso musia syndrome

Most vulnerable ones: those bloggers, writers,chatters and scrappers who being temporarily jobless and have found some solace blogging and whose creative juices have either dried up in the summer heat or have got dissolved in the monsoon rains.

Symptoms: sudden mood-shifts which may result in sudden variation of facial expressions; often getting lost in thought; often seen scratching the head or scribbling on pieces of paper, or for the more advanced techies.. staring at the blank screen of the MS Word at length; an increase in the number of blog-hopping he/she makes in an attempt to get some ideas and so on…

Remedy: Wait for the return of the Muse or blog at your own blog’s stake… no other cure known till date.

Sensing that I am slowly becoming a victim to this deadly disease, I suddenly got into action. Tried out ‘n’ number of things which proved to be of no avail. Finally I decided to try out in the old ‘Mayavi’ style…Om krim Museee… Om krim Museee…
(well this piece of crap is inserted as a result of a certain friend who keeps chanting this often…so much so that I penned it down)Anyway….the Muse senses one of its blogger in trouble(that's me!) and Voila!the Muse returns…and after 1 month 3 weeks 3 days 2 hours and 15 minutes ..here I go blogging again…somebody stop me!!!

4. Nite-outs!!!

That’s yet another one of those standard rules laid out for college goers…especially for hostellers(night-schies???).To be frank, I came across this word for the first time only after I joined the college—that too from an ol’iit pal of mine that too while chatting. The first time that she mentioned she had a night-out, I was like……. er..nite-out???....she???....she was out the whole night? OMG!!! what was she doing? Naaa…. but I never let her know that I was sooo ‘low funda’ed on such ‘technical’ terms. By yet another one of my ‘ingenious ways’ I extricated out from her that piece of info. At last I became enlightened of this new ‘collego-technical’ term. So night-out means….well it’s just another name for ‘burning the midnight oil’---the only difference being it needn’t necessarily be for studying alone. No.. no rules like that. It can be for doing anything ranging from serious studies to chatting, blogging or just chattering away through the whole night.


Thus being enlightened of this new term I realised that we’ve had many a night-outs… a looot many. The very first of our(or rather my) night-outs…. we were literally outside. We were in the audi; it was the LH farewell. The farewell party extended well into the night….way till 2:00 am. The party was…er….(cant comment on it in public---danger of being spied by the seniors who organised it). Well the only worthwhile part of the party was after 2:00 am when the party was over…and we made our way back to the hostel. We had to pass by the AH(1st yr guys hostel)…and guess what we did??? The girls howled and hooted and screamed their lungs out….in the dead of the night…at the AH. A few heads appeared at the balcony, whose unfortunate eardrums had to endure the horsepower of the gals’ vocal chords. Well!!... so that was something..….


The 2nd sem witnessed night-outs at almost regular intervals of time---the period of interval being 1 week. Being in the ‘rocking D-Batch’ these are unavoidable weekly circumstances. Come Friday evening, all the books will be closed(ie…if any were open by then). The next two days will be that of blissful enjoyment, completely unaware of the burdensome realities of the remaining 5 weekdays. As though fast-forwarded by some invisible remote control, the two days pass away at lightning pace. Sunday evenings come like a blot from the blue. Along with it comes the great realisation of the next day’s assignments, submissions, tutorials, records, and what not??? But still we don’t start the work…there is always a time for it…and that time is at around 11 pm(literally the 11th hour). The next few hours are that of searching frantically for the long lost books; scurrying from room to room in search of completed copies; racking our brains over Shames and Theraja problems, and where one head alone doesn't work, gathering in the common room with a packet of Parle-G, to put our heads together (….. and also to fill our starving tummies). By then daylight would have set in. So when do we sleep? Oh yeah…there is always time for that in the class, listening to the not-so-melodious lullabies of the faculties.

Night-outs have now become a part and parcel of our NIT life. The last of the night-outs that I had...it was a proper night out…didn’t sleep at all for over 44 hours. It was the last day of our first year in the campus. We were supposed to be dead tired after a mind boggling mechanics test, but the extra energy pumped in by the excitement of the forthcoming three month long vacation drove the sleepiness out from us. Sat through the whole night---packing, chatting, orkutting, watching many movies at a time in a number of laptops….that was a real night-out. The next night too, I had to stay awake till 3:00 am(poor me) to make sure that certain people get down at the right station at the right time in the right way……. (but… psst…psst don’t tell anyone…. I slept off just 5 minutes before they alighted the train).


PS: I had to take yet another nite-out to write this nite-out. It’s now 3:33 am local time.

3. A Valentine's Day COE.......

February 07:
This was the day which witnessed the commencement of the comedy of errors(COE) of 2 naïve, inexperienced yet greedy chinkys in an attempt to outsmart the biggest ever M3(Money Minded Monkey) of all- S M kutty. The leading characters of this COE are….Resh and Nee;S M kutty, G2 Nair and of course AB.

With the newly developed M2 idea we went to class as usual. In class we were racking our brains away as unusual. Ya right, it was tronics class, no wrong we weren’t thinking about those opamps and amplifiers…..in our brains we were brewing M. we were waiting, with bated breath, to unleash our M making plans.
ie to buy cards from kutty at half the price and sell it for full price……(well this idea too was given by the M3 kutty himself).

As step 1, Resh went and told Kutty about our desire to buy the cards. He wanted the exact number of cards we needed, which I told him later while he was about to leave the class, after ‘n’ number of vain attempts to catch his eyes. We needed four cards. He agreed to it as usual without even looking at the face.

Break time: we went to the coffee shop for refreshments; but our M2 minds were racking away restlessly. Well this racking thing did bear fruit this time…at least that’s what we thought for the time being. As if God-sent, AB came along the way…(AB and God-sent?????)…we painfully endured his chalus and kathis and hopeless mouth looking for quite some time---all for greater benefits. We even had to tell him the names of the girls in C batch--- each and every one of them. But no that wasn’t the ulti….the ulti was when he asked the name of a 4th year girl(name withheld for privacy)---“ini 4th yrine nokiyillennu veendallo”……. Slowly after moments of painful endurance we began implementing our plans on him. After a hectic session of compelling, bargaining and pleading he finally agreed to buy 6 white cards for Rs 8 each….Bingo!!! Profit=(6 *(8-5))=18 Rs just from AB. Hmmm….not a bad way to start. But the funniest part was that we asked AB to send 3 of the 6 cards to us!

Now what are we waiting for??? Next stop @ Kutty. He was literally taken aback when we said we needed 10 cards, despite of his futile attempts to hide his surprise. He asked for the cash then and there…but as we are not potties..we agreed to pay only after he hands over the cards.

Meanwhile parallel to this, another plot was going on with the 2nd lead character of this COE. Ya it's G2 Nair—he was literally pleading with resh to buy some cards from him, but at full price. Why do we M3-in-the-making need cards from him @ full price when we already have cards from kutty @ half the price?? We merely turned down his offer .We came back to our hostel, elated. Wow! what a state of bliss we were in when we came to know we would be making a total profit of Profit=(6 *(8-5)+5 *2)=28 Rs

That night we were supposed to have a sleep filled with $dreams…..but naaaa….that doesn’t happen with us….we are sound sleepers…nothing can interrupt our sleep. We slept soundly enough….but not enough to wake up our roomies though.

Time goes on…….
February 08:At LAN: Reenz had dragged me along with her to the LAN to create a civil-blog for debutant. Our LH CC as usual was out of order-- when we wanted it the most. So here I was…sitting in front of the computer…surfing the web aimlessly for some 'Promethean'(blog) stuff. Then I pinged Kutty. Ok so coming to the LAN wasn’t a total waste after all. At least I could remind him to bring the cards the next day itself. I casually asked him whether he had the cards ready. No ----was his answer….” You are kidding right?”. No he wasn’t. Don’t tell me that our kashtapettu budhimutti implemented plans are going down the drains…..no way!!! I couldn’t wait to get to Resh….

I made a dash to the LH, to the mess where Resh was. I broke the idivettu news to her. She couldn’t digest the news nor the food she was eating… her(our) very first of the M making plans was going to poliyify….no.. no way!! To reconfirm the news Resh smsed Kutty….(imagine Resh wasting an sms…..the case must be pretty serious). Soon came his reply. “I’m sorry”….sorry mannankatta…. little does he know the plight we are in!!!

‘Your sorrows will be turned to joy’,says the Bible. Will our case be like… ‘your profit will be turned to loss’?????? will our Profit=(6 *(8-5)+5 *2)=28 Rs be turned into Loss =6 *(10-8)=12 Rs????? wait and see……

Time goes on again…….

We planned to launch a no talking motion against Kutty….. ….but however the next day he explained his stand to us….he simply didn’t have any cards left with him what is he to do? Hmmmm….

Kutty chathichenkil chathichu….. we are supposed to face such unforeseen situations in a business. Ok so we now have to think of other means….and fast… feb 14 was closing on us….we have to keep our word to AB and Deepthi. AB had entrusted us to write the cards for ourselves and to post them. He left for his home. Deepthi badly needed 4 cards. We had prevented her from buying it from others.

As if God-sent there came AB’s call………(AB and God-sent again??????). He was trying to remove himself from this card business. Finally we made him agree to reduce the no of cards but to buy them at full price. Bingo!!...he agreed. Ok now problems are a bit reduced. We at least came to break even. No loss ; no profit…thadikedakathe nokiyalmathi ini…. But from where are we supposed to get the 6 cards we need?

Ok only one more way….call G2 Nair…..call the very person whose offer we turned down a few days back!! Gathi kettal puli pullum thinnule?karyam kanan kazuthakkalum pidikkande??? What followed, must be the most embarrassing phone call that was ever recorded in the history of phone calls….. poor Resh pleading with G2 to sell the cards at a reduced price---her last attempt at making this business a profitable one…..How long the conversation lasted….I’ll tell you when the phone bill comes…but even after minutes of persuasion….unswayed as ever he is, G2 didn’t concede to our demand.

Deal made. We are gonna buy 6 cards from G2 at full price, and sell it at the same. When one door opens…another closes itself. So what’s the problem now??? Well…G2 is not in town…he’s gone to TVM to get his arm dragon tattooed@@@???and he’s got the key of his cupboard which contains our precious cards. Oh no! can things get any worse??? Ok…every problem has a solution with it…so does this one. All right so now what is to be done?? Break the lock. Didn’t work. Good lock….which ever company it was of. So now what?? Find somebody with extra cards…..

After hours of painful search we finally got one Mr Antony. Whoever he is, he had the cards. Our last hope……….a meeting was arranged at the ATM. We were supposed to meet this guy at 5 pm Friday the…....no not 13th…Friday the 9 th. As usual in all of our COEs….when the guy finally makes the appearance only one of us will be left behind…this time it was Resh. I had to go to the placement thingy… the guy came..not at the appointed time though…he was a bit late…but we finally got our 6 cards. Valentines day did not become our wallet emptying day after all!Phew!

Wah! That was some tale of 6 cards!!!..

A word to kutty: ne thanneyada the greatest M3 of all!!! :P

2. THE TERMINAL—Re-enacted???

The day finally set in ……….however the excitement didn’t. It was just another day…..woke up late, had a bite of aalu parota, and ran to the class-not at lightning speed though…..cos the first hour was tronics. The rest of the day continued just like that…ok …hmmmm…resh n reenz were all very excited….they were kind of distracted in the class (in fact they were literally counting down each of the 60 minutes of the last period-PP’s maths class). Surprisingly enough, I was able to pay attention. Then had a boring civil meeting in the afternoon(yawn….)


Afternoon came… slowly I started packing..Actually there wasn’t much to pack because of the 'limited luggage to be taken’ rule. Packed ’em all in jus one small bag. Mom came…I was a bit late …got good therees from mom and dad for that. Picked up vikru(bro) from his hostel and off we went to the airport. Reached airport at around 8:00pm local time. After checking the luggage we went to the restaurant to have dinner. By then it was time for departure. We boarded the flight at 10:00pm local time.

(Comments about the airport---cant even guess in which century the poor airport took its dilapidated birth. The airport was simply pathetic!! Tell you what…..its really sad that such public places which is frequently visited by the outsiders are maintained in such dilapidated condition. Imagine the first glimpse that a foreigner gets of the ‘Gods own country’!!! )

The plane was ok …not bad. I got the side seat….actually I took mom’s side seat. Took off sharp, at the right time-10:20pm local time. The view outside was beautiful. It looked like small sparkling stars embedded on the ground. But the land was in view only for a few minutes…..then came hours of total blackness.. Listened to some music, watched half of some lame Mallu film, had dumb refreshments…by the way the plane was air India express-343.
------------------------------------------------------------
The land of the arabs!!!!! ……..man the sight was breathtaking…..it was simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. What stark difference from our land!!! The land appeared to be an assortment of precious jewels decked with priceless gems!!!

Finally..we were in the land of the arabs…..the airport was GOOD!! hmmmmmmmmm…… another stark difference from our country. We had to undergo an eye print test(dunno for what though).These people…..what do they think of themselves…whenever they see Indians they start speaking broken hindi…..but their hindi is far better than their English..pakshe avarkum vivaram unde ketto…this particular man spoke to dad, mom ,bro n GK uncle in hindi….to me alone they spoke in english……God!even the arabs know how pathetic my hindi is!!!Meanwhile a young arab at one of the checking counters ‘sugar-beat’ed with me…..he wanted to know where I’m from…India…..where in India……Kerala…….where in kerala……TVM…...where in TVM…..my foot! Why in the world did he want to know all these???

Then we had to undergo some passport checking thingy. All of us were successfully checked out…..all expect me …….of all the people in the world, but me…. waaaaaah… Those crazy arabs said some gibberish in hindi and asked me to go to some immigration office…me ALONE. Then came those ‘idivettu words from his mouth……’.. “Meena…. your visa is cancelled”WHAT????CANCELLED??? ….Ok….fine…so…what am I supposed to do about it????? It was 1:15am local time.

Dad came to the rescue…but actually there was nothing he could do .Next 7 hrs were.hmmmm…….what can I say….it was a one of a kind experience…imagine 7 hrs stranded in an airport in a totally alien land. Vikru and GK uncle were sent to Ashok uncle’s place. Dad and mom stayed back. At first we thought it would soon be resolved easily. These arab people….they are too rude….’Hoooooooow…Ruuuude’ They never offered any help. ..nor help us find a solution…nor offer us a comforting word. They were on the stand that my visa was cancelled and so I have to apply for a new visa at 8:00 am local time. Whose faulty was it anyway?? Dad(short tempered as he is)..his temper rising…. began to argue with the people. Finally they agreed that if they could get the passport of my sponsor they would let me go. So we now have to call my sponsor after finding out who the heck he is; make him come all the way from wherever he was and on top of that persuade him to keep his passport at stake for me…..HOW DUMB!!by this time they made my parents submit their passport too if they wanted to remain with me. So now we were in a totally alien land…with no visa ,no passport….no nothing.!!!

Oh oo!… battery low!!!battery low!!! The lappy needs to be shut down immediately.Oh no!…my only source of entertainment ..that too gone?? am feeling hungry too.... my stomach has been empty for the past 4-5 hrs(groan..grumble)..no source of food is in sight either…. waaaaah…. Now what am I gonna do the next 4 hours????

LAPPY DYING ^v^v^^v---------------^v^v---------^v-------------^----------------
LAPPY DEAD___________________________________________
RIP.

1. “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”(Ecclesiastes 2:12)

Joining NITC was like one of the seven wonders of the world. Alright….considering my acad performance till 10th , it can be said that it was no big deal at all…but my 11th and 12th witnessed….hmmm….what can I say….one of the worst dip in my acads. And after writing the jee ’06, like what someone(Anupam)said…the “IIT….IIT…IIT…” chant turned to “at least NIT…NIT…NIT….” So it was indeed a miracle---me getting into NIT. No I didn’t get a branch that I opted for….but still…...
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways And my thoughts than your thoughts.”
So believing I started my professional course in NITC.

One year at NIT got over so fast... so quick! But the one year was packed…jam packed with ‘n’ number of activities and events.4 sessionals,2 end sems, Sangam, tech fest, Thatva, dandiya night, LH farewell, Campus trek, debutant, hostel week, adrenaline, LH get-together, innumerable musical nights…and to top it all..Ragam---NOKIA Ragam 07...Gosh……so many!!!

Though there had been a few highs and many lows…on reflecting the past one year…there definitely had been God’s guidance throughout। First sem acads wasn’t that bad। Went pretty well… got a not-so-bad gpa। But the second sem was pathetic… Simply pathetic (still dreading the results) :(

One good thing that happened during the 2nd sem was, we got a bunch of believers….the EU…ever united, where there are true dedicated people who stands for the Word. We are now one big happy family.

Life in the hostel too is great!---  hostel life is not all that bad…though there is room…or rather there are many rooms for dissatisfaction here and there; now and then…we form one great bunch … Got a handful of great friends…who have successfully…or rather is in the process of successfully converting the introvert that I was …or rather I still am….. into an extrovert. Thanku guys!! :)

And one word about my dear sibling too…life in 1st yr would have been miserable without him. Gosh the number of things he had done for me!!! Its not that great…. but still…….paying my mess bill, buying stuffs for me from kattangal, taking lib books for me, carrying heavy books from LH to lib in his cycle, accompanying me to the church, therivilikifying me and making me feel miserable after each sessionals(his favourite quote being……. “I got full for mech n tronics..and u barely scraped thru huh??)………. the list doesn’t go on very much..but still……. I am wondering how am gonna survive the next 3 yrs without him….love you so much dear bro…(vikru..kooduhtal ponganda keto…)

The classes are as usual….having all the elementary qualifications of typical coll classes. Bunking, listening to class very attentively with eyes closed, proxies(for classes as well as for tests),the frequent ringing of mobile phones in class, the professors' incomprehensible, and often senseless, boring blah blah blah….. etc..etc…and outside the classrooms ….well its treats, treats and more treats!!!

Exams are real headaches…...a real pain.We'd be enjoying life peacefully in the ‘serene’ atmosphere of the campus, when all of a sudden these unnecessary elements crop up…creating havoc and disaster…wrecking many innocent lives---at least that’s what we feel like. The exam week witnesses a series of night-outs---which apparently is another name for sleeping on the table with books used as pillows…. It’s the time when we become Colombuses and Galelios, discovering new new chapters hidden deep in the pages of big fat books …it’s the time or rather the only time when our Computer center has a momentary respite from the innumerable ‘orkuttians’. …it’s the time when we keep repeating to ourselves a hundred times---“mein aisa kyun hum????”

Hmmm…. Now that was a few highlights from my first year in NIT…..but that’s not even 1/10th of the whole thing…..now 3 more years to come….. what might be in store for us??? k……will wait and see :)