Well,well well.. Looks like we've got lots of catchin up to do!
So what have I been upto in the last 10 months? Let's see, 6th n 7th sems, a far-east tour, CAT,GRE,applications.. Yep, a year as uneventful as can be. Increased responsibilities and the gruesome business of being an adult.
On a more promising note, I might be moving to London towards the end of the year. To pursue another degree in another place. Well what can I say, I'm waiting for things to kick up a bit. Until that happens there's sem 8 to deal with not to mention yours truly.
Wonder what I'll do once I finish with my degrees. Till now its always been school followed by college which is soon to be followed by business school. Work should be exciting if it involves travel. And solving problems, managing people, making decisions... I want the career bit of my life to be happening, incredible, perfect. After all there has gotta be some point in striving academically for this long.
Screwed almost a whole year on CAT. Another door shut, another dream shattered. I can't help bein melodramatic! I mean look at me, I'm hopeless. I'm 20 and socially awkward. Academics is like the most eventful thing to have happened to me. Its like a bloody purposeless existence. I mean why do I NEED so many degrees? The whole world's gonna blow up anyway, nobody's gonna care about what anyone else is upto! When the hell am I gonna experience that hypothetical high in life.. And now thanks to CAT I could end up becoming a fat unkempt housewife with 5 kids in some hellhole in Sharjah! What's the damn point?!
Well 'twas silly to spend a year on bleeding cat.. And maybe I'll get the LSE admit. Maybe there is some hope left after all? I'll let you know in a few weeks...

A normal day in the life of Sindy
In some logic defying zones of the world such as Anna University affiliated colleges, marks are awarded for your esteemed presence in class. You could sleep through the 7 hrs for all your teachers care. Your form must be present, this is all they ask. Sometimes 1 mark can make such a difference to your life. 1 Mark can save you from the throes of 'the marked ' students(arreared lot). It can save you a semester's worth of peace and promise. Your peers will not sneer at you, your parents will not speak to you with a disgusted air, your profs will not pick on you and so on.Attendance is worth 5 marks. Easiest thing in the world. Just sit through every class every working day and you get 5 marks. HHmmph..you think!
Here's an account of how far one could go for getting marked present in those conspicuous yellow books.

7.04AM The subject rolls over, digs out a harrased alarm clock from under layers of pillows, sheets and books. Her eyes widen,graceful brows raise slowly...
7.08AM Subject remains immobilized, owing to the torrent of incoherent emotions and the crashing of cymbals within her form..
7.10AM Subject resigns to the fact that her college bus would've pulled off by now. She'll have to bunk the day again. She swears, gives a venomous look at the now trembling clock and goes right back to sleep...
7.20AM [Nokia Tune]
Subject wakes up with a start. Subject's bus mate on the phone, reminds subject about her acrid attendance. Tells off subject, urges her to get to college somehow and hangs up.
7.40 AM Subject has managed to step out of the house, a veritable accomplishment in under 10 minutes, in one piece. Now we wonder, how exactly will she get to college. Available Options are:
a. Metropolitan Bus
b. Call Taxi

A laughable situation. Easily a. is the right answer on account of the charges. But the subject as we know by now, is one of those rationally challenged kinds. Subject goes to the bus terminus, where she is told that the next bus to SriPerumbudur leaves in 20min.
7.50:Miss future decision maker, decides that 20 minutes will cost her dearly. So she takes the first cab and reaches destination a few minutes after her friend on the bus.
9.10AM:Ecstatic at her achievement she tries to ignore the five grand that she had to dish out to the cabbie. Attends her first class, is unable to concentrate owing to 500 rupee notes swishing around in her mind's eye.
10.00 AM Subject is enters her second hour class. Is greeted with applause and a standing ovation. They have apparently 'heard'.
10.45 Subject gets up to grab a bite at the canteen.. Is pushed down by fellows.."Sit down.. Sit down!"

[ the remaining 2 hrs have to be bunked. Its imperative. Subject does not wish to explain the context and gives complete rights to the readers to deduce their own conclusions]

1.15 PM: Subject is certain nothing can go wrong for the rest of the day. And why not. The rest of the afternoon is about to be spent in an air conditioned lab with comfy chairs. Its only compiler lab. Just kut-kaapi-paste..
2.00 PM Subject has managed to get both assigned programs output verified. And why not. The other batch has brilliant coders. And such humanitarian souls. They never bother to lock their ids.
2.05 PM Still cannot believe her good luck.
2.06 PM: "SINDUJA, please come here.", thunders the egomaniacal sub- assistant lecturer cum lab guide.
2.45PM: Subject has tried to explain that the code was her own. "The source cannot be found", she says. "Its wholly possible that everyone else copied my code." Laughable as this sounds, she has a point. Afore mentioned egocentric lect thumps her desk. She commends herself on her accomplishment. Her 5th victim this week( one every day). Refuses to mark subject as present for the rest of the afternoon.

Moral of the story: If you want to bunk, decide the previous night. If it can't be helped, accept your fate and stay at home where you will be safe from crazy fares and lunatic lects. Attendance is not worth one month's allowance.

Remember me? I happen to own this blog... AWOL is my middle name, by the way.
OK so whats been happening u ask? Lots and lots of things. First of all, I've started to gain more perpective than i did when i was 5. The results have been encouraging. So that's the good news.
In other news obviously world cup and all that sha-la-la...Nothing worth chronicling.
Got hold of this book that looked amazing. But of course looks can only go so far... It is calld Hidden Connections by Fritjof .. An understanding into how societies right from the cellular society to the society we know otherwise as the world are basically organized in the same way. So in essence if you understand molecular biology you'd probably be the Secretary General of UN.
But ofcourse, Tharoor would scoff at this theory. He scoffs so much all the time that ultimately he scoffed at the idea of Secretary General. Whatever. Tharoor's ShowBiz made me see reels of my life running in front of my eyes for a whole day. Mr.T's reports on the Hindu of Banaras University are even more pathetic. I would commit suicide if I were him.
Well back to the hidden connections, the book promises to show the solution to our purposeless progress on the allegorical road to success or fulfillment.
And now I must hit the sack......

Mmmmuuuuahhh!! Tiz been thoo long..
As I type, I'm overwhelmed with trepidation. For the usual reasons...
The banal and mundane life that I've come to embrace, the exigent need to be associated with anything that is remotely of purpose. And the insipid icing.. a pedestrian style of writing.
Taureans are said to have this emotional turmoil raging inside their mental selves. That urge to kick someone in the shin, that urge to kill, to devour, to yell, to turn pyromaniacal... depending on your respective tide levels are some of the none too familiar instances. If you're as indolent as I am, you'd get that discomfiting feeling that only torpidity can bring.
Of course, this sort of thing is ubiquitous.But you see blogging is ubiquitous too.
The point is to make the most squalid of affairs sound redoubtable. But creativity is ephemeral. And though I admire an esoteric person I know from experience that they have been traditionally P.N.G-ed from decent society.
Some bloggers think that by preening and primping up their spaces, their writing is exonerated (including yours truly). That blogging might actually ameliorate your writing skills, has become axiomatic. A quotidoian monotone, an acerbic exchange, vituperations, villifications, mollifications, odious remarks etc., however potentially pernicious they are for your readers, remember
one perfunctuory glance = one visitor = 3 page
views
And that along with all the temerity you could possibly muster is all that matters...
Trust me this is no harangue. Just an innocuous jaculation of a halcyon preparing for a standardized test...

Sometimes, on a rainy day, when ur munching on a chocolate and watching 'Top 10 Holiday Destinations', it seems like somebody punched the pause button on your life.
And then you begin to think about the week that was...then months... transcends to years..Your life's reel is running right in front of you. Some bittersweet moments, others haunting,others teary-eyed... You realise almost suddenly that you've travelled far to a destination you never planned on going to. You realise that the whole funda of life is like travelling on a train(Team Laloo aspirant,thats me). You get onto it at a stop, make aquaintances and then when its time you've got to say your byes and get off at your stop to catch the next train.
And everytime you evolve like a pokemon. You learn,you get hurt and then you become wise.Takes long...
I've been feeling low for sometime(Thts normal init?). Because of academics,college,romance etc. Because of what others think about me. Or what I would want them to see.
Dunno..Whether this thing's therapeutic or not..but I felt different.Like 'So what if Phoenix is in a mess?'..'So what if CSE sucks?'..
I'm glad I'm in Sri Venkateswara Coll of Engg(SVCE). I'm glad to be part of the elite, hep croud that is SVCE.I'm thankful for all the experiences I've had and all the people I've met here. Chennai is the best city in the world to reside. Life is not so bad after all..
Its about counting all your blessings.
And about the man in my life.Its something I can just not resolve at the moment.Maybe some day I will end up with someone I really love. And of course that will be THE DAY..
Maybe I've just been giving myself a hard time. I don't deserve it.
I've been reading some blogs and most of the bloggers, including me seem to be walking around in this self-constructed fog of depression. Probably its the time of the year.Exams, cyclones...
But you must try this.Put whatever you're doing on hold,and saunter through the miracle that is your life. The blessings you've been endowed with, the good times you've had,the mistakes you've made and where it has got you...Cheers and have a nice day:D!

Today was another one of those Boom- boom- boomer days. The usual labs, seminars, prof rag-sessions. Honestly.. the extent to which you can screw a fascinating sub like Networking..that lect deserves every bit of the humiliation she experiences when she handles our class. Nywayz the hour has alwayz been a welcome distraction. Got me on with Zen & the art of Motorcycle maintenance, one of the really good books I've been reading in recent times. Kick-started my muses. Nope, I'm no artist. But my timing of response and inspiration coincides. Nowadays I find it difficult to wake up unless I manage to reason out the exact purpose and need to get outta bed.It takes me so long to do normal things like wish a chap 'Good Mornin' or even acknowledge folks. My friends always attribute this to my spectacles.
But Zen... got me alive. I've always felt this kinda physical barrier when it comes to computers. Being my chosen branch of study its hard gettin away from these machines. When I say machines I say incomprehensible and feeling-less brats whom I have to depend on for the final semester verdict, complete with a distasteful wag of the brows. Or so it was. But something went wrong the other day.
It was one of those model practical exams where no dunderhead in his right mind would refuse to copy the programs from the root directory. Copying is no art when you get to college. Some programs are simply mug-proof. This becomes a problem if mugging is all you have ever done. And so most people who have never ctrl c'd (except for their school projects)try it, it's worse than blatant clumsiness. Really.. We have some folks who suffer from OBS(Obvious discretion syndrome).
Since I've never copied anything since 3rd grade(when i got caught red-handed)I decided to prepare for the exam. On the day I aced the viva, algorithms and even the codes. But as always my prgrams refused to compile let alone execute. Futile attempts are just that. Futile. Really, it is hard to realise that you spent almost 12 hrs learning those programs and Dumb & Dumber get it right with having put in no work at all. Zilch. They wouldn't know the function of a solid socket let alone programming a virtual one.
And then it clicked... I had to understand the socket. Visualise its creation. Appreciate the beauty of its coming to life. And its purpose.
Empowered by my new found passion for sockets(!!) I found a few errors. And executed it. And then... nothing.
I was so very lost in the surreality that I couldn't transcend to the reality.
But Zen... couldn't possibly go wrong. I was practically feeling like a socket. I could see the client and server on either side of me. I even tried talkin to the server in C++ when I realised it was my classmate S givin a concerned look.

S: U look crazy.

Me: bind(socket descriptor, client address)?

S(Having no apparent knowledge of the prgr inspite of getting outputs verified) :What r u talkin about? U still sloggin with it.. U don have to kno all that. Just go to another terminal window..bla..bla(S is explaining FTP rather professionally..)

Me(having lost all my remaining sanity):Write("Shut up",socket client);

S(Still doesn have a clue. Poor dude doesn't even kno he used C++ to code.):U will never learn.Everyone got the output.(says this with so much pride it makes me want to flay his ass with sockets).Dont tell me u bothered 'preparing'. Well tuff luck then...Let me kno if u wanna FTP.

And Anna Univ confers these blokes with BE degrees and Infosys gives them 18k a month. Makes you wonder where this country is headed.Zen... and books like it can never explain this. The meaning of Life is no longer what it used to be. Times are tense and insecure.
Insuring success has become the trend.An increasingly popular alternative to GRE and CAT classes is 'placement classes'. Wonder what they teach.
How to sound like you are the future of the IT industry after you've figured out what the abbrv IT stands for?
How to effectively browse the company website for question paper leaks the day before?
How to ace GD? Important topics: Manmohan's blue turban.

I just can't help but feel I'm the only righteous soul on the face of this planet.That's another Zen... moment. Here we go again...

Times are challengin.. Would've said they're gettin worser but thats unimaginative.. Thats another challenge.. Tryin to be imaginative.. The thing is I am normally imaginative..very much so.. but when I decide that I need to get imaginative it just doesn't work..
So why do I feel I have to be imaginative?
Because imaginative ppl are generally able to crack their GREs nd CATs. Because imaginative people think of the coolest awe-inspiring things. Because imaginative ppl are generally successful.
So why do I want to be a successful person?
Because success is a concept backed by man ever since he decided to fight for his survival on this damned planet.
Just imagine.. Because of this man's folly we have been nurtured on the idea that success is the be-all and end-all of life. Supposing man had decided to be unsuccessful..Suppose man had decided that 'un' should be +ve. Or +ve shud be -ve.. Then maybe we wud all have been strivin to be unsuccessful.. but then that wud involve achievement 2.. Anywayz.. Its my misfortune.. I have been nurtured on the +ve idea of success.. And just like I have to try and stay alive I also have to be successful...
So if success is positive and success is challenging then why is it that challenges are not welcome?
This statement becomes very simple to prove if u tried using predicate calculus to solve it. Challenges ought to be welcome according to the statement but in reality(damn it) logic is always at the loser's end. How such highly illogical beings such as humans can think of discrete math remains a baffling mystery.. Historians are under the impression that logic was created by hypocrites who behaved as if they are thinking up somethin so fascinating that it wasn't anywhere near reality. In fact the history of Maths shows that reality is a potent killer as far as Math is concrned. But the term illogical actually means somethin like'that's crazy..won't work'. The thing is logical doesn't work either. So why come up with negation for a term which is a negation in itself... Whatever.. 

Comp Sc dept symp. at a glance..
Turnout=341(distorted figures no doubt..)
Lack of interaction between guys nd gals, between sec A nd B, egos flyin all around.. nd the effect wasn't as bad as I'd expected.. Events got delayed, some participants left in a huff but on the whole t'was memorable.. in many ways.. wouldn curse ny1 with such a misfortune as to belong to the CSE dept.
Consider this..
Bitchy reps who r in-charge of ur ODs, snooty lecturers on whose deaf ears your pleas and arguments fall on for attendance,absent-minded HODs who can't remember ur leave letters and the fact that he himself had permitted it, lazy team mates who'd rather sit in class nd sleep rather than accomplish worthy goals, cute guys flirting with air-headed bimbos,having to take commands from big-time losers etc. Enough to drive ny reasonable person up the wall...
And if u add to all this a stuffy saree, an ugly robot which is ur responsiblity even if ur whole class helped u make it, an event going haywire even before it is supposed to commence, painful recognition that u were supposed to be the event's co-ordinator, a cat fight involving the queen of SVCE(air-head#01), an exasperating debate with one of the queen's maid-in-waiting (air-head #02), Don Quixotes of ur class backing airhead#01 nd group, none of ur friends in the vicinity to back u up( tht always happens doesn't it?), getting hold of 3 lunch tokens and losing all of them, having total jerks as ur department student leaders nd presidents... it wud be ur best bet to get the new and improved Ashwini formula for hairloss..
Yeah, i can go on no doubt.. But there has to be a full stop to all this shit at some point.. Isn't life supposed to be full of hope nd promise?!!

When that delicious red rose that had totally captivated your soul with its lovely, youthful splendor only yesterday, has now turned into a thorny, evil brown and morbid shell of its former self, it's very telling...
Matters of heart... Terribly confounding.. Vilely delicious.. Sheer confusion...
Jaane kyun log pyar karte hain?Jaane kyun..
So for now.. No more Love's Punch(its a drink),no Mills&Boons, no Femina, no day dreamin, no vetti smsin during class(with him),no late nite chattin over phone(with him), no freakin spyin (on him), no mandapam meets....
I hate cute geeky nerds.They're the ones i get attracted to easily(sucker for intelligence). I dont need Men r from mars.. to analyze guys.Thers nothin to analyze.Poor dudes..They're just emotionally immature.A concept such as love eludes their understanding. Their feeling range is about as thick as a strand of hair...Making a guy understand tht u've been taken by him like.. forever, is so exhaustin tht u might as well expect reciprocation a lot faster from ur observation n.bk(?!).

Hell...k..ciao later...

cont. from prev post

The city of London is more of an experience rather than a famous capital.
"London is like a chocolate chip cookie",says our guide. "The chips comprise of sections of London inhabited by a particular community, a chip each".
The Indian community lives in an area called Wembley. One doesn't even feel he is in London anymore, what with shops like Karpagam's Veggies and Muthu's Chaaya Shop lining up both sides of Wembley's roads! The controversial Wembley football stadium is located in this area. The Wembley stadium is under re-construction for over 3 yrs now. The workers they say, go on strike so often on account of lack of wages and just about any strike-worthy issue, that a part of the frame of the dome, about 1200 sq ft in area, took them precisely 15 days to set.
Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum also a short distance away, is not exactly something everybody would want to take time off for. But if ur mum n dad are comin along nd want to make sure that they get all of London's wonders onto a 512 MB memory chip to show to all the uncles nd aunties nd granppl back home, then ur quite likely to find urself here. The only snap that had me in it was with Steven Spielberg. It certainly was kewl to have him hold his chair for me! Mum got 1 with Ash, the Queen nd her sons and Diana while my dad went for big B, Blair nd Bush on a podium nd Gandhi. What makes these wax figures real I discovered(sic) were the eyes. Glass eyes.
The Tower of London- Old forts, cobbled grounds, ravens,staff dressed as English Guards, smelly rooms, smelly tourists,LCD displays narrating stories about a bunch of dead guys nd oh yeah! The crown jewels of the monarchs of England. Our very own Koh-i-noor occupies its prestigious seat amidst other precious stones in the Crown of Elizabeth.
"The British are very transparent", says Dad."They shamelessly exhibit and vigillantly guard articles which the whole world knows they stole".
The grandeur of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II plays on LCDs all over the place. It is then that you realise how very old and grand this English nation is. It is then that you realise how you desperately have to pee and how very wrong you were to leave behind your jacket at the hotel.
British Airway's London Eye- If you are a way up photo freak who doesn tire ever of snappin away and absolutely doesn wanna miss any building in london from whichever angle, this really slow ferris wheel is for you!!
Buckingham Palace- They say that the best thing the Queen and her family have done for London is bring in astonishing numbers of tourists each year. And so she(the Queen) is obliged to leave 1/10th of her castle open to the public. The change of Guard is good. You can see where our soldiers learnt soldiery from.So are the dozens of Parliament buildings, Town Hall, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Church. Not good. Simply amazing. These structures utterly dominate the ant-like pedestrians and vehicles(even if they do move in an atomically solid mass).
No.10 Downing Street, No.1 Hyde Park, No.10 Baker Street-famous addresses(yeah nd u get to guess)as they draw up in front of you, impregnate in you that feeling of complete conquest of the mind. You tend to jump up nd down on your coach-seat shouting out names of places and monuments you've only visited in books and movies. London Bridge is falling down, falling down... the rhyme silently plays on your lips as you cross the famous bridge and gaze across the commercially exploited Thames.
Coming from a society which has traditionally refused to accept the existence of homosexual activities, to me, the Gay Pride was something of a curious observation. At the juncture when I got to see it, the march had concluded at Trafalgar Square where participants and others flocked towards the colorful stalls and open air concerts. Nothing too interesting,though. Men walking hand in hand was all I saw!
If you're travellin in London on a budget, London is the right place to travel in. They have the most amazing transport system you will ever come across. A special all day travel card that can be purchased in a tube station, or from a public transport driver is enough for you to get around anywhere during the day. This card is accepted by both the buses and the tube railways.
The Tube- an Indian invention, is the most remarkable and oldest service of its kind in the world. Coloured lines indicate which primary line u'll be travellin on and u can jus hop on n off all day.
Of course, to most its the English pubs that make all the difference. But don't get near the English especially when they're drunk and when England has been chucked out of the FIFA world cup in the quarters..
Harrod's- World famous department store. They sell everything from chocolate to cosmetics, from clothes to cars, from stylish lifestyle products to Jumeirah Beach residences. What they don't have they order. Even the proverbial white Elephant. As opposed to a widely accepted notion that Harrod's is as expensive as it sounds, the fact is an emphatic no! Affordable mostly but oh so luxurious.They sell only quality stuff. You will never find offers in the store. Sales yeah but no great bargain deals.