Nothing's goin' right

-- A switch in the LAN box trips and the whole wing is mired in darkness ( I mean disconnected from the rest of the world) for one whole week :O No mails, no DC++, no quizroom. For my wingies there is no Orkut, no CS, no AOE. It's worse than being starved.
-- It's my project guide's course and I turn up without doing my assignment. I botch up something clumsily on paper, create a few equations out of thin air, as he arrives checking. He notices the gibberish in my notebook and displays a stern face. What does that mean???
-- I do a little project work on my comp and the comp seems to have aged. Running a slightly cumbersome image conversion program crashes the system and restarts involuntarily. Should I get myself a laptop???
-- I meet my project guide almost after a gap of 20 days and all he says is "Keep meeting me now and then man."
-- I meet my guide for the 4th time in almost a week and he mistakes my aim at redemption for wanting more work and dumps a huge project onto me. What a pity!!! Now I have to work atleast 6 hours a week in the lab. Thank God, it's still coding that I get to do.
-- The first simulated CAT exam and I mess up while blackening the ovals on the OMR sheet.
-- The LAN starts working after a week and I open my inbox to find it empty :O
-- I take up a tag by TF and once Scribefire crashes and the other time the computer reboots for no reason. Rewrote it again from scratch.

Life's turning out quite Crazy. Huge workload and confusing schedules. Priorities keep changing by the minute. I do not know what to do.
I hate my life. Period. As I was telling mom the other day, 96 hours a day still wouldn't suffice to get me complete my work.
And again, I haven't been this busy in years. So I guess I am enjoying it as well. I love my life. How Ironic is that??? Or how much more INSANE can I get???

Music It is

Another tag by The twilightfairy
This time its about music.

1. Which song is being played in your mind right now?

“You were my everything” by Aviation.
I’ve heard this one over 60 times today. So what else could blare in my head right at this instant?

2. One song that describes your life…. (no self made compositions please)

“Patience” by Take That
“Bad Day” by Daniel Powter
“Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol
“Trouble Sleeping” by The Perishers
“It ends tonight” by The All American Rejects
“It’s not Over” by Daughtry

Life’s so byzantine and convoluted that to encapsulate it within one song would be entirely out of question. So maybe the assortment here might paint a faint sketch of me. It’s got more to do with feel and the mood of the songs than with the lyrics....

3.The song you listen to most on your Ipod/Mp3 player/Cell/PC etc…

Most songs have a relatively short shelf-life when it comes to me. I listen repeatedly to a song until it isn’t fresh anymore or until I find another one. Poor “Dave”, who unfortunately is my neighbour, has to endure the same song repeatedly blaring from my speakers – mostly I use the repeat mode. Like it is “You were my everything” from Aviation today, “Paas Aaya Kyon” last week, Rihanna’s “Umbrella” the week before that and “Laare Choote” sometime in April ;)

But then there are those that surpass all boundaries and are a pleasure to the ears. These are the few that I turn to when I am down and out and need to rejuvenate, when I am happy and want to feel exuberant, when I am dismal and want to feel better and sometimes fro no reason at all. A few such that I can recollect right at this instant, I’ll mention below.

“Iris” –Goo Goo Dolls
“Hero” – Enrique Iglesias
“The Reason” - Hoobastank
“You’re Beautiful” - James Blunt
“Dream On” – Aerosmith
“Words” – Boyzone
“Hotel California” – Eagles
“Stairway to Heaven” – Led Zeppelin
“When you say nothing at all” – Ronan Keating
“Thank You” – Dido
“Diary of Jane” – Breaking Benjamin
“Horse with no name” –Americans
“Late GoodBye” – Poets of the Fall
“So Sick of Love songs” – Ne-Yo as well as the female version
“Wonderwall” - Oasis

Guess, I’d better stop here and move on.

4. A song that best describes the following days in your life.

School/College Days –“Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams. Nothing else strikes my memory when you say school days. The selection is self explanatory.

Love – haven’t experienced it. So I’ll just quote the most romantic songs I’ve heard.
“Nothing in the world” by Atomic Kitten
“She’s Everything” by Brad Paisley. The lovely lyrics epitomize the perfect girlfriend I guess. I might be wrong, though.

Mood right now – “Colorblind” by Darius. Confused yet feels fine. Replace the girl in the song with workload.

5. Your all time favourite song, and the reason for it... maybe some memory/ some funny story/etc!!!
“Yeh Haseen Waadiyaan” from Roja
Rehman’s first and his best.

I remember singing this in some compulsory singing competition in school(must have been in class IV then) and amazingly ended up being selected for the school choir.

6. A song u wish u hadn't heard!!! (more than one is always a pleasure!!!)
Him(s)hesh Reshammiya -- No second thoughts on that.
Man!!! Is he a pain in the arse???

On a trip from Mysore to Ooty the driver couldn’t seem to get enough of him and we had to endure the songs all along the 6 hour trip and no prizes for guessing who ended up with a headache.

7. A song that would best describe..... Me[twilightfairy]
(Hey, I took pains to tag u, I guess I deserve this ;-) )
I do not know much about you. Everything I know about you is from reading the posts on your blog. So you maybe just come across as sweet and nice.
I am tempted to say “Angel of the Morning” by The Pretenders ;)

But then let me go with this lovely piece – “The Mass” by Era. Note the aura in the song.

8. If you were in an elevator with Himesh Reshammiya and Altaf Raja, you would..........
Murder Himesh by slitting his throat. Or cut off his nose, so he further can’t sing. Altaf doesn’t bother me that much.

Now to further tag somebody, I'd like to see Dave(my music GURU) write a similar one as and when he starts his blog. For now 'Rampage' I tag.

Roger Federer -- The Artist

I'd been wanting to write something about Federer for quite some time now. But then, With my limited vocab, I feared I would just be belittling the sublime artistry of the wonderful champion. His mind-numbing repertoire and arsenal of shots, his ability to change gears in a jiffy, his on court cool, calm and collected disposition, his amazing handling of pressure situations, his off court charity works, his body language and attitude, his respect for the legends as well as his peers, the humour and humility preset in his press conferences, his striking looks, his gorgeous smile...... Ooh!!! I can go on and on.

But then before I say anything more about the master, all his greatness is encompassed in this absolutely wonderful NIKE Ad. With a voice over by Tiger Woods and the absolutely apt music, this ad has been one of the best I have seen over the years. The twist at the end makes it all the more worthwhile.

P.S : For all the Nadal fans and Sampras aficionados, I truly admire them both too. Let's not compare Sampras and Federer. They were the best of their generation. How they would have fared if pitted against each other in their primes is just fodder for speculation. And Nadal is undoubtedly the best clay courter ever and might catch up with Federer very soon on the other surfaces as well. Love his fighting spirit.

Hmmmph.....

Yaay!!! The Competitive Streak in ME is still alive !!!

Alas, the Hardworking Me is Dead. Period.

P.S: Sadly True :(
I need a kick in the arse to get me started.
Dude,Wake Up!!!

The Impregnable Fortress

Another semester has arrived and we are back to the customary routine. How easily we slip into the routine after a lazy holiday still astounds me.

Just like every other semester, this one too promises to be a harbinger of many good things, nay great things -- I am just required to put in the requisite hard work. Pronouncing this sem the key to my entire future would be making an understatement. With my GRE scheduled for October and then CAT for November followed by the Placement season all December, this one promises to be a make or break sem. My entire future hinges on these few months ahead.

So for now, all I am doing is HOPE -- hope that everything turns out right. Here I can't refrain from this inspirational quote from one of my favourite movies of all time, The Shawshank Redemption -- Andy Dufresne's immortal lines to Red.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

So, as I sign off with Hope, wish me luck, my friends, in my endeavours.

Song in the background : Umbrella by Rihanna feat. Jay-Z

P.S: Oops!!! I almost forgot. The title......
The Impregnable Fortress = a 9 point SGPA
This is something that I have come so close to achieving the last two sems but one which still conveniently eludes me. I still have 2 more shots at it though-- still it feels a lil' painful having 'just' missed the mark, twice at that.

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The 8RF Game...

I've been tagged by Twilight Fairy....

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.

Now that I have had my fill of "lazing and relaxing" after the rigours of the last fortnight of my intern, it's time to return to the usual mode of life. Any more lazing around and I will just be boring myself to death. So here goes 8 random facts about me.

1. Last 7 days Liquid Consumption Stats

Aerated Drinks (Coke/Thums Up/Appy Fizz) -- 22 bottles (500ml each or is it 600???)
(Just back after counting the bottles heap in the kitchen)
Water -- Hardly 2 such bottles.

Me on a lonely island with an unlimited supply of softdrinks -- I'm sure I can make it through.
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2. I seriously believe that my favourite sporting heroes are jinxed when I watch them live.
Like the only ball of the 2003 cricket WC tournament that I watched live, Sachin Tendulkar was out to Shoaib Akhtar. I sauntered to the television room when he was on the verge of his century and then it was all over!!! :(
Federer lost the French Open 2006 while I watched it live and Schumi's engine blew in the Japanese GP last year denying him his rightful title.
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3. I suppose I am low on self esteem. I deride myself a huge deal in front of others. I seriously do not know if I consider myself a weaker earthling than the person(s) in front or if the derision I heap on myself is a result of my insecurity and fear of failure.
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4. I am a loner. Being an only child, I have no idea as to what it feels like having a brother or a sister. I long to be pampered. I wish to pamper someone and feel protective about that person. I seriously wish I had a brother or a sister. But then again, being an only child always comes attached with lots of goodies -- and so I'm not complaining too much.
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5. I don't know if this is normal. But I have never had any crushes all my life -- be it cine stars, classmates or whoever whatever.
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6. I used to be a sucker for marks. Topping the class was all I used to think of and subsequently put a lot of pressure on myself.
I was always the topper of my class until I set foot in the rarefied hallows of IIT -- where I broke free off my self imposed shackles and topping the class has never been on my agenda since.
I still remember vividly the incident when I scored 16 1/4 marks in Telugu during a unit test and my competitors for the first rank scored 16 3/4 marks in the same. I cried so badly for the half mark they'd gained on me, that I threw up in the class, much to the embarrassment of the teacher and myself.
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7. My last year of stay at Kharagpur will be the 17th year of hostel life for me. 17 of 21. That's a huge number, I guess. I'd bet I have seen a huge array of people than the average person and the whole melange of characters from the motley crowd that has passed by me has made me quite worldly wise.
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8. I write long e-mails and long letters -- but the recipients haven't ever complained about their length.
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Whoooo!!! Didn't know I had to slog out so hard at that one.
And finding 8 more people :O
Well, let's save that for another day.

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Oh.... Wow O Wow !!!

This feels real good. A Huge Morale Booster especially at a time when I am pondering at all the unwise steps I took during the course of my life.

The Outlook-CNN-IBN poll places IIT Kharagpur back at the Numero Uno position in the Engineering College rankings. Back to the top. I still remember those message T-shirts junta used to flaunt when I was in my first year, proudly proclaiming, "IIT Kgp....Lonely at the Top" . Then there was the fall from grace!!! Slowly the tees vanished too.

I still cannot comprehend how these rankings are done and how the jugglery of the top 5 IIT's can happen in the rankings each year when there isn't much of a change in the way each IIT functions. Maybe just a little bit of infrastructure addition -- which appears to be of the same magnitude in all the IIT's because they have very similar fund allocations. How much ever the rankings and the ranking system may puzzle me, it is so refreshing to see my dear insti back at the top of the ladder. All I needed was a reason to move out of the gloominess and what better reason than this. Has pepped up my spirits and got me kicking.

Addendum: As if one isn't sufficient, here goes another--The Dataquest Rankings where IIT Kgp again tops the charts. :)