i have never been a person who has paid much attention to my position in the class. May be it was because I have always fluctuated between the extremes. In school, even my best performance could not match up to a guy having the 20th position in class, while some metamorphic change in my grey cells ensured that either I was first by a huge marging or not motivated enough to chase the topper tag in my college. But now, in my first year of postgraduate degree, I for the first time am facing the pangs of finishing second or maybe third.

I do not wish to blame someone or the other for this debacle (ya!! debacle because i had been meticulously planning my performance and following other people to finish at the top of the heap here. I had taken it as a challenge as finishing on top inIIT is a dream and also it gives me an amazing opportunity to apply to the best grad schools in the world for my PhD.), but the more I think of it, the more it seems that luck was not with me.

The key paper as it turned out to be was my strongest subject but in which i fared worst during the exams, and for that i just cannot come to terms to blame myself for the mistake as I had done everything right but to learn a certain mathematical topic, which i did not expect in a thermodynamics paper. But as destiny would have it, that turned out to me the most critical question, in an otherwise extremely tough paper. The two people who I was feircly competing with, obviously sent that fulltoss over the ropes, while i missed it completely.

I still have a chance though, but it is like the soup indian crickete team finds itself in. They have to win the match by a convincing margin, but also expect that the hot favs fall to the minnows in a match to reach the next stage, thanks to some mathematical jugglery.

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME
by Robert Herrick

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

i heard this poem in Dead poets soc. in which robin williams follows it up with this

"They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. "

carpe diem means seize your day in latin!!
so people CARPE DIEM!!!!

ps. does not that poem remind you of time by pink floyd........mayb i will put up its lyric in a later post

i thought all night yesterday about what to write to catch fellow bloggers attention in my first blog today, but now i am so tied up for words that i am unable to write about anything and evertyhing i thought about!!!!

the only things that i feel i want to wrote now are about the recent IIPM v/s blogosphere war!!!...this is what seriously hooked me on to blogging. the number of people who have written about this and courageoulsy unearthed more and more un-nerving data about that insti is amazing and great.....it sends a sort of message to the world and more to the people in positions of power......the common man sees understands and now is capable of creating changes!!!!...phenomenal....
personally, i was always a bit skeptical about that institute...right from the time i started seeing their outlandish adverts!!! i have read some blogs (apparently from IIPM studnets defending it and all...esp defending their catch phrase of dare to think beyond IIMs).....my only question to those people, is that if ur insti is soooo good......why dont we see students chucking IIM-A or B to go to IIPM???...for that matter any MBA insti in the top 20....MDI, NITIE etc etc.......makes no sense to me!!!!

the other thing that i am thinking right now is the pathetic behviour of the crowd at the eden gardens following india's loss!!! I have a feeling that the pitch itself was doctored to suit the SA...a tacit way of the bengali ppl to tell bcci...how dare u keep saurav out of the team.....

I have stayed in calcutta all my childhood and i know the sentiments that the calcuttans share for saurav........i have been involved in all the festivities the calcuttans involved themselves in when saurav was eleceted india's captain and in a way i can understand their dissapointment when saurav was dropped. But the way to respond to such a decison was not to support the opposing team in a match and boo your own captain ( who has an amazing record in eden...better than saurav's......3 centuries in crunch matches, that epic partnership with lakshman etc etc) and the best player ever to have played for india, sachin. The crowd should realise that saurav was a part of the indian team and not that it was an indian team because saurav was in it.....
and in a way i feel that the reaction is unwanted. it is one thing for the people to be unhappy, but the chief ministedr of the state...mr bhattacharya makin a statement for the reinstatement of ganguly as captian is totally unwarranted....a person in such high a position should atleat have the logic to believe that if the 5 selectors and the coach et al feel that saurav should not be the captain, then he is no expert in cricket to comment on their decison. Also, i was in bangalore for a couple of years and esp during the world cup when anil kumble was overlooked for a position in the team......people there were not angry but supportive of the fact that india odi team minus anil is a good team even though anil was the best spinner in the country!!! and to think of it sauravs bad patch seems to continue for infinity, whereas anil was dropped because we discovered harbhajan when anil was injured!!!

calcutta crowd must learn to accept decisons and look at development logically and not emotionally......they must accede that the ultimate dream is india winning 07 wc and not saurav leading india to wc'07 !!!