Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Rain Rain Go Away....And Come Agin After I Get My Umberella

Just back after a long weekend. Hoped it would never end. But bad times go and good time come. So tomorrow I will have to compulsarily wake up in the morning, have breakfast, bath and head for my classes.

Would any one of you believe that I wished that my last semester's result go bad! Surprising isn't it. But makes some sense to me. In the whole last semester, I had studied very little. Ask any friend of mine and surely they would say that whenever they came to visit me, I would be engrossed in my game of Pocket Tanks (a computer game for kids 3~10, but I am nuts about it). So with this, I expected to get a bad grade, open my eyes to reality and start studying again. But now, with such good grades, who wants to study more. Equipped with my knowledge of "Law of Diminishing Returns" (courtesy the 3rd semester Economics course), I know that studying any harder won't help much. So I am off to chasing my dream hobbies. But this semester, I find its Blogging (both reading and writing). I have just spent the last 4 hours reading the blogs and now, I am off writing mine (currently busy so : Do Not Disturb).

What surprises me most is that Pocket Tanks is no longer my game. I swear I tried it this semester also, but things won't just work the way they did the last semester. I find it hard even to play a single game, while the last semester wouldn't stop me from playing a dozen before saying:"Now this one's my last".

What more happened today is that I have started to go for swimming. And I am exactly where I was. Shaunak gave me a few more tips, but I assume that he assumed that I already knew swimming and I find myself incapable of even achieving the posture suggested, let alone the strokes.

And what happened more is that I have misplaced (I feel ashamed to admit that I might have lost!) my umbrella. And God isn't as much kind to me as Murphy is. You all guessed right. It rained while I was going to swimming. I and Suman decided to stop under a tree and wait for it to stop. But our guts had a different feeling - that it won't stop soon. And anyway, the angle of the rains was so oblique that the tree was no good. If you are surprised to find that eventually going to swim, so why care, I would admit that your worries are not unfounded, but given the past I sit upon I knew the better decision. Last year I did as you might be thinking and it wasn't much problem till I came out of the pool, dried myself and tried to wore that T-shirt.

For the first time in my life, I hated my own smell. The dried sweat when combines with a complete soaking doesn't cater to any olefactory whims. Anyway, a lesson learned the hard way.

So here was I again after my hopeless stint all set to wear that T-shirt. And well, psychology helps. Being prepared for much worse, I realized that it didn't smell that much and that I haven't sweated it in the first hand. So I came back home and had to immediately switch over to a back-up dress since I was programmed to do so by my parents.

Time came to go to the market. And to tell you, Dr. Murphy is very mean. It rained again and I had a hard time recollecting where I could have lost my pretty old umbrella. What was the last time I saw it.....hmm, looks like it was the Thermodynamics lab where I put it on the chair and then forgot about it.Well, let's check my theories tomorrow. I am more eager to see this theory through than any other theory I ever wrote in any exam.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Trip to Indore

A bit bored with the usual routine of life, I and Ankur decided to go to Indore for a couple of days. It was decided that we go on 11th morning and return on 12th night. As Akshat was busy with his training at Lupin Chemicals, he expressed his inability to come.

We set off at around 8 am and reached by about 1pm. We went directly to Kashyap's house to stay there. After spending considerable time there, we called up Shaunak and decided to go to his place. After bhatting for some more time, we went to Supriya's residence, from where we were escorted to SGSITS College. I had seen the college just once before in my life, so the escort was necessary. There we met many more people. They included Shainesh Baheti, Babu Priyavrat, etc. We intended to meet Mohil Khare and Sulabh Jain also, but they weren't there. Ankur surprised Baachu by calling him from his sister's (Deepti Jain) mobile phone. But as he was sleeping, the dose wasn't that strong.

Then we went to Buddy's Cafe where we also met Charles and Aadil. Later we went back to Kashyap's place to sleep. The next day, we decided to go to a movie but as there wasn't any worth watching as well as unwatched by everyone else, the idea was dropped. We went to Chhappan Dukan with Kashyap and Shaunak and had our lunch there. After that we planned to go back to Bhopal. But Ankur also had plans to meet Urvashi before leaving. So, on way to the Bus Stand, we stopped at Celebrations to have coffee with her. Then we took another bus to get back home.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Just another day at JFWTC

This is how I would describe my typical day during my stay at Bangalore, a description of a weekday at work.

I woke up at 8am and got ready for going to JFWTC (GE). By the time I left, Vikas was already up, though sleepy-eyed. I reached the Whitefield bus stop by 8:45am and had to wait for approximately 5 minutes for a bus to Agrahara Gate, skipping 2 buses (a bus and a mini-bus) which were going to Kadagudi. I got on just in time as there were only 3 seats available and I was the second one to board the bus. The journey cost me 4 rupees. I had to walk from Agrahara Gate to ITPL Back Gate, a distance of approximately 200 metres. There again I had to wait for 5 minutes to get another bus to Vydehi Circle. This journey costs 2 rupees. I reached GE at about 9:15 am and had Masala Dosa for breakfast. It was necessary for me to eat as I desperately needed to get change of my Rs. 100 note.

Reaching my desk, I spent the next half an hour checking my mails. In the meanwhile I cursed IITKGP webmail for displaying those unnecessary "Disk Space Usage" that served no good and just made the process slow. There was a mail from Suman regarding his proposed Bangalore visit and about those boring gossip parties that he had to attend. Maintenance Systems had sent a mail that mentioned not working of e-mail sever during some time period in Sunday.

Then I started to do my work. As I had already finished my literature survey and made a word document with all the things added, I was just selecting the relevent portions to be added to the presentation. This went on till lunch time when at around 12:45pm the group decided to go for lunch. The food was like any other day's. All the four caterers, i.e. Griddle - I, Griddle - III, Harsha and Harsha - I served south indian dishes. Out of about a dozen dishes, I had no idea what 8 of them meant. The ones I knew included Plain Rice, Nimbu Pani, Dal Makhani and wow.....Chana Masala in Griddle - III.......lets eat there today.

After the lunch, we went back to our desks and re-checked our mailboxes. After another similar session and a few Calvin & Hobbes comic strips, I opened my work yet again. At around quarter to three, our manager, Mr. D. Uma Maheshwar came and told that he is planning to give me a slot of half an hour in the Friday's team meeting to present my work.

As soon as he left to his desk, I decided to go and play billiards in the recreation room. I had to wait for about 10 minutes before I could join a table. I played doubles with a GE employee and the opponents were IITM guys. "These guys don't seem to have any work. Whenever you visit the recreation room, you will find the lot there", I thought. I had moderate luck today. I won three of the four games played, but was unsatisfied as I missed a couple of easy shots as the stick I had was a lighter one.

I returned back to my desk at around 4pm. I continued the decoration of the presentation and things went on quite eventlessly till 6pm when we went for snacks. I preferrered Veg. Sandwich for snacks over Bonda Soup.

After snacks, I went back to my desk and started my journey back to Whitefield at around 6:45pm. Vivek and Sauvik told that they plan to stay back as Vivek had to go to the gym and Sauvik had to do documentation work. As I was coming back, I could see the clouds gathering that meant another rainfall in the coming one hour.

I got connecting buses from Vydehi to O-Form to Whitefield and was in my room by about 5 minutes past 7. I rested till 8pm when I went for dinner at Mayuri Sagar. I had Egg Curry with 5 Rotis. By the time I was done, the rain had started. All the others were back at around 10:15pm after having their dinner. I always went to eat earlier as at 8pm, I had choice of more dishes as well the serving was quick. If I were to go at 10pm, most of the good dishes will get finished and I would have to fill my stomach with what's available. Also it would take a lot more time.

I went to sleep at around 11:30pm after having another Bhaat session with the group.