we had our M.Tech projects alloted today.

There are two funny things associated with this that i would like to write about

1. The allotment process is such that every prof floats his/her topic and then the students are to take it according to a merit list. Well, the fac advisors also have to make sure that all the profs end up getting a student.
This sort of reminds me of team selection when we were young. Two captains were selected and the rest of us would stand in a line for the two captains to pick from, and all the people in the line would just be hoping that they are not the last to be selected!!!!! (for more elucidation on this concept, see the Wonder years, season 2 episode named 'loosiers'). Well, the profs were on such a line today!!!!!

2. If two students have the same CPI, and if they want the same project, it boils down to a coin toss!!!!!!
and today it was real fun (for all people except the two who were calling). So, the fac advisor suddenly became the match referree and we had inzy and dravid shaking hands in front of us. The prize: the project floated by prof Malik!!!

it is agonizing to be caught on the wrong side of the toss on such a placid wicket!!

but we enjoyed the rub of the green in 2004 when sehwag and sachin pelted the pakis around.....now it is their turn

i predict a similar result as that which india got in multan last time to the pakis this time!!

day before report in HIndustan times was about how some shiv sainiks went and pelted some stones and all on a shop in a Pune, just because they did not put up the name of the shop of in marathi.

Shiv sainiks are known to do this, but the larger picture is this the type of politics that we want to indulge in. State/ language sentiments is agreed, but to impose them on people is not at all correct. I have the right to live in any part of india, speak any language that i may wish to speak, and on my private property, put up signs in my language of choice (must not be obscene!!).
When the laws of the country are such, such antics by shiv sena should and must be questioned by the law (supreme court/high court)

One more point that facinates me, is that how do such tactics lead parties to power. I believe that any educated maharashtrian should discourage such insular and partisan views. Mumbai, what it is now is the collective effort of so many Indians and not of a few hundred maharashtrians.

However, all said and done, this tactics of manipulating language/regional sentiments is seen all over India.

The 60s saw ADMK/DMK rise to power in TN, based on the general apathy they created to moves by the central gorvernment to ensure that Hindi is learnt by everyone in school. Why, even recently, Jayalalitha demanded that Tamil also be one of the languages in which national documents are written when they are tabled in parliament etc (right now wnglish and hindi are used), based on an outrageous argument that this is done in singapore and malaysia!

Yesterday, Kiran Shaw of biocon, dealt another blow to karnataka govt. Hope Bangalore buckles up now and try to become the paradise it was once was!!!!

since september last year, I have been leading a half hostel-half ghar ka raja types lives.
My parents moved to mumbai, and so I have been spending week-ends at home.

The trouble though is, after enjoying mummy ka haath ka delicacies every sat-sun, it is hard for me to adjust to the crap served at the mess!!

forgive me if the spelling is wrong! i never quite figured out the correct spelling...try different versions every time!(google says spelling is right)

was attending a lecture yesterday, and the prof got philospohical and said
"it is amazing how people spend so much time and effort in trying to buy a cell-phone, but fall in love at first sight"

this got me thinking

i have this habit of deciding major events/things in my life in a jiffy, always just following what my heart says at that moment, and sometimes I have already made the decision and then I go through a long process of deliberations and taking opinions and what not!

just a couple of instances
I had not really thought about writing GATE ( the exam conducted for graduate courses at IIT), and actually focussed on geting myself on a plane to the US to do a PhD!, and my hard work in this regard and got myslelf an admit with aid to RPI!!
in the meantime i wrote GATE and surprised myslef with a All india rank of 112, and the next thing is that i am on a train to IIT-B for the interview.
This is where the amazing thing happens...I reach the department early in the morning for the interview, and just glance through the notice board and a board where the faculty publications are listed, and I tell my friend Badri that if I get through the interview, I will stay back in India and do M.Tech in IIT-B.
And after i got IIt-B, i followed it up with a whole lot of "discussion" with friends, seniors, teachers, relatives, and so many other people on what to do...go to US or go to IIT. But, as i think back, i knew all the time that i will go to IIT, and mostly i was trying to justify this (still some people think that i am a stupid to leave a rank 30 univ giving you $20,000p.a. for IIT).

another time is now, I decided that i will take up profV.P. proj while i was working on my seminar (really liked my seminar topic and he is the only prof working in that field), but after the topics where out and after I topped the class, I started to 'decide' on the project, because I was now in a position to choose the topic of a professor whose reccomendation is more valued than prof V.P.......whole of december wasted contacting the same bunch of people, and again trying to justify taking Prof V.P.

that brings me to the question
am I being rational or not, because i just seem to take important decisons in a jiffy, and then seem to validate it!!!.....(am I sounding crazy)

but then, it is my decision and it will be good until I start disliking it!!

confused soul

this is the title of a book, i read around two years ago. It is an well written book about the various emotions being captured by the authors in literature. The best part of the book was the quotes that the author used to illustrate his points.

Here is one which I can never forget.

"The world that I regard is myslef, it is the microcosm of my own frame that I cast my eye on; for the other, I use it but like my globe and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my Altitude, for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point, not only in respect of the Heavens above us, but of that Heavenly and Celestial part within us; that mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind; that surface that tells the Heavens it hath an end, cannot persuade me that I have any; I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty; though the number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind; whilst I stufy to find how I ama Microcosm or little world, I find myself more than great. There is surely a piece of Divinity in us; something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun."

i guess that is going to be my title for posts in which i have nothing to say!

well, i spent a couple of days thinking what shoud i write about in my next blog.....

frankly, i have been trying to write on topics so that i see some extravagent numbers in the comments column!! (justifies the last blog..but hey..i really believe in what i wrote)...

but now, i just suddenly think that MY blog is for myself to write any crap that I wish to write ( i just want to please myself)

so, right now, second semester just started and i am drifting from class to class trying to select the electives which are not much pain and where i can maximize a grade and a prof who can give a good reco..

one thing that has stuck me is that suddenly my 'tastes' as far as the subjects of my interest has changed drastically, i mean some topics which i was desperate to learn during my undergraduate, somehow do not interest me now (i am not even drifting into those classes!!!) and a subject which was not all that dear to me back then has become my first love...i dream of becoming a 'guru' in it!!
the more i think, i am not able to attribute any courses or such in my first sem here that made me change my mind

absolutely bewildering