Bored! + Typealysed

So jobless I'm trying this 'typealyser'.

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Never really liked the term 'mechanic', reminds me of those greasemonkeys fixing nuts and bolts, checking aail etc. I don't think I'll make a good firefighter or a policeman.
Still, policemen come with guns...

"And it makes me wonder..."

The semester thus far

On the outlook, IV semester promises to be boring because of the cancellation of events of all clubs, ‘tech’ or otherwise, due to their apparent getting-in-the-way of the students ‘academics’ which leaves only Engineer and Incident as the mentionable events to look forward to.

Classes - It has been two weeks and my resolution to not sleep in class and take down notes has been severely tested. The classroom seems to have a soporific aura all around it. And every time I enter it, the sparse mess lunch seems all too heavier, eyelids begin to droop (more than usual!), and voices of other students seem distant as I slip away from reality. By the time I get in, frown at the shameless nerds cramming 5 or 6 of themselves into benches of 4 and take my usual last bench seat (not that I have a choice!) the teacher has already entered and it is time to begin the epic struggle against the oncoming waves of sleep. With the subject under ‘discussion’ (I must say monologue) and the drone of the lecturers not even slightly helping my cause, I rely on sheer determination to pull through the rest of the class and though I’ve stuck to the resolution so far, the future seems uncertain.

Music - I’ve been listening to more of stoner metal bands like Orange Goblin, Grand Magus, and Spiritual Beggars characterised by their heavy Black Sabbath inspired riff, gruff and haunting vocals, dark, gloomy and satanic lyrics.

Anime – Recently watched a series called Blade of the Immortal. A slash-and splash anime like Ninja Scroll and Basilisk, which explores the concept of immortality while trying to prove the finality of death, involving rogue samurais, forbidden techniques, the works. Nice time pass.

Up next (probably): “On birthdays”

Coorg photos

Check these out.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bhargava.urala/CoorgSeenThroughTheLens#

There and back again...

A friend of mine pointed out that my blog looks orphaned so thought of wiping off the layers of dust, a month and a half old, and put something up on this blog.

Even as I wonder about a suitable topic the images from the Mumbai mishap, so generously splattered on TV screens across the nation by countless and thoughtless news channels, spring to mind.

A most concerning feature of the terror attacks has been the amount of sensationalism created by the media.

Every news channel repeatedly playing scenes of explosions, getting in the way of the armed forces pestering them for statements, loudly announcing unconfirmed rumours creates a sense of panic among the general populace. By doing all this, the media gave these terrorists exactly what they wanted. A.t.t.e.n.t.i.o.n. Tons and tons of it. By announcing body counts and death tolls the media are only helping the terrorists in creating fear and panic.

The blame game, of course, has already begun. Some prominent politicians blame Pakistan. The West suspects Al-Qaeda. Bow-bow blah-blah.

But shouldn’t we all take a moment, step back and look at this from a different point of view?

We are killing each other. Rather shamelessly.

Slaughtered on the streets of Mumbai was a 27 year old IIT graduate whose was set to marry his childhood sweetheart sometime next week. By a mere whimsical pull of a trigger, they have extinguished lives and dreams. Brought agony to many many more.

As terrorists and armed forces fight it out, both convinced that they fight to defend their faith, to honour their country and in the service of God, the real victims however are innocent people.The cruel irony is that men murder their own kin and do this in the name of God.

The words of Mark Knopfler come to mind:

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

A Brief Respite

Back home after an extremely hectic month and a half at Surathkal. Utterly insignificant yet overhyped club recruitments, a couple of IEEE events, truckloads of quizzes and pots, classes and extra classes, labs and extra labs, records, assignments, quiz tests and the assorted academic torture devices kept me pretty busy. Midsems went moderately well, except quite obviously EMW, handled by the Wigged Wonder.

The visit to Bangalore was preceded by an offer I couldn’t refuse- unlimited pizza and garlic bread for just 140 bucks at Pizza Hut and the ‘icing’ on the cake: ice creams at Pabba’s after nearly 2 medium pizzas.

Other things of note:

• Revived my habit of reading comics Some of which- Brian Azzarello’s take on Batman, The Punisher, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Transmetropolitian, were particularly good and captured my interest. Thanks to LiverDamage for suggesting these.

• Was forced to read Brisingr on an e-book E-books seem to have become a necessary evil with actual books being ridiculously expensive or hard-to-get (maybe I’m too lazy) or simply not worth the wait (maybe I’m too impatient). Racing in parts and unbearably slow in others, Paolini shows that he still has much to learn in the art of writing. However, overall it was a good read and Brisingr certainly lays down the foundation of the fourth (and hopefully final) book of the Inheritance series.

• Managed to get my hands on and finish watching Code Geass and Gundam 00 in HD quality thanks to Mr. Pengu. Hard to get such quality anime in NITK especially with painfully sluggish download speeds.

• Expansion in music tastes continues Have moved on from purely Metallica and Maiden to Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimi Hendrix, more of Floyd, GnR, even instrumentalists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Yanni and many many more.

• Could not watch as many movies as I wanted to I had to satisfy myself with a few Westerns; couple of oldies like Hitchcock, 12 Angry Men, To Kill a Mocking Bird etc; Goodfellas, A Few Good Men, Shooter. Among recent movies I saw Dark Knight (great acting by Ledger as The Joker and well worth the visit to Adlabs), Wanted (Rajnikanth inspires Hollywood); and a few more.

• Series How I Met Your Mother 4th season sucks so far (How could they do that to Barney?) Heroes season 3 is looking good after slightly slow and boring first two episodes.

All in All:

It was a well deserved break mostly spent sleeping and eating, apart from the visit to BMS and BIT for ‘Engi Publicity’. At this point of time with nothing to expect from this sem except Crrescendo and the endsems, I leave to Surathkal tomorrow night hoping to finish off third semester very soon and gear myself to survive another!

Shifting Done

The shifting from WordPress is finally done though the order of older posts has been messed up.
Looking forward to post regularly from now on!!

In Retrospect

July 6, 2008

Finally it is almost time for the long and boring holidays to end and the third semester to begin. It makes me look back and reflect upon how I’ve used, nah! spent, my first year in NITK…

I SEMESTER

I arrived, of course, wide-eyed and wondering how hostel life might suit me but turned it out just fine. The fact that most of my friends populated (infested is more like it) the place made it extremely easy for me to feel quite at home in the hostels, though I must say the I Block mess and its dedicated(?) staff made extraordinary efforts to make me feel quite the opposite.

The first few months

passed by rather uneventfully, most of the time card games like uno, bluff sufficient for our entertainment along with an assortment of sweets and snacks from our homes. Room no.65 (humble abode of yours truly) was soon christened ‘Party Room’ and ‘Recreation Hall’ among other things because it was the meeting spot of our friends where we sat, teased each other, talked and in general killed time.

T20 World Cup

arrived and my mild interest in cricket was aroused with all the shouting in the TV room, Yuvraj’s six sixes in an over and the Indo-Pak final. Oh! By the way our midsems were held around the same time I think…

Crrescendo ’07

(Yes there is an extra ‘r’) arrived with a jhatang yellow shirt that seemed to poke the eye with a thousand needles at the same time. It was a pretty lowkey event its only highlight being the fact that we (Rotti, Srini and me) qualified to the Quiz finals but only managed to gape at the questions and finish last.

Then came November and with it came the exams (damnit!) but it was over in a week and I was finally able to say goodbye to Chemistry (yuck!) and EG.

II SEMESTER

II semester was soon here and so were the computers. Our room was robbed of its ‘party room’ status (I’m not complaining) and anyone with a computer was soon bombarded with requests for borrowing them, even from people you didn’t know! (do minute orkut check karloonga, de yaar)

Movies, series, sitcoms old and new were watched by large groups huddling together around one screen. Movies I had always wanted to see, movies I hadn’t even heard of, Friends, HIMYM, anime- I saw them all. God bless DC++!! The arrival of many more computers meant Age of Empires II on LAN. The ubiquitous war-game assumed a new status with inter and intra block matches- Vanquishing the armies and buildings of another human with those of your own gave us all a thrill and joy that is difficult to express in words.

Engineer ’08,

the NITK techfest happened in February. It didn’t seem like a crowd-puller (or maybe I expected too much) but some events like robotics competitions and laser shows were extremely interesting. I participated in a robotics workshop and Rotti and I won an event called Breakdown.

Incident ’08,

the NITK cultural fest followed but I bunked it, preferring to stay at home. I received a mixed reaction about it- some, who attended a few events and played MAFIA all night told me it was awesome while others, who stayed in their rooms and immersed themselves in AOE said that I had missed nothing. All in all, it was a good February- almost completely devoid of classes, fests, more movies, AOE and of course home.

IEEE Techaholic

(Get Addicted), a fest held by, and largely for, the first-years was held in March, the last thing to happen before the exams. Now a newly enrolled member of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) NITK Chapter, I organised Ctrl+Alt+Del- a coding event with Rohan and co-organised the Quiz with Adi and Anirudh. Both events went on well despite the malfunctioning LAN and internet and received good feedback from the seniors. It felt good to successfully pull off two events though the late reimbursement of cash left me with quite a hangover!

The endsem exams

were done and dealt with, accompanied as usual by the last-minute rushes and the frantic confirming of portions, searches for books etc etc. The rooms for second year were allotted and chosen along with a great amount of galata with most of us Bangies occupying the second floor. Then came the pack-your-stuff-check-recheck routine and finally after having left my mattress and buckets in the locker room, it was time to say goodbye. The dreaded Surathkal summer was beginning to get to its peak and I made a timely exit arriving at home on April 20^th.

Holidays

were spent mostly at home with DoTA, Prisonbreak, sleep and good food, along with the occasional chatting with friends, movie at PVR, functions and collecting quiz questions.

I am looking forward to going back to Surathkal now, to 24×7 access to movies and series, to the company of friends, to all the quizzing, gaming and football-under-lights. In a nutshell, to a good life!!!

Water Water Everywhere, not a drop to drink!!!

July 21, 2008

NITK Surathkal, situated between Mangalore and Udupi, just off the Western Ghats and right next to the sea, a place where it rains half the year... You wouldn’t think there’d be water shortages here that too in the monsoon, would you?

We had been told that being residents of the notorious VII block, allotted to the II years (Yay! I’m a senior now!) we would get more than our fair share of water shortages or ‘water-cuts’ (along the same lines as ‘power-cuts’!). These unannounced and timed-to-near-perfection water-cuts mean that the unfortunate student might be stuck with a faceful of soap, half-shaved moustache or in places that are not mentionable here!!! This coupled with malfunctioning water-coolers mean that drinking water is a long and boring walk to the neighbouring blocks all the way from the second floor. Talk about high and dry!!!

It certainly is disheartening to see the rain pouring outside the window while the tap miserly lets out water drop by drop or to see the vast Arabic Sea stretch far into the horizon and feel your throat parched as though you are living in the Sahara. The ‘concerned authorities’ of course are surely doing ‘everything in their hands’ to save us from our plight.

Net Result: -

“Why is this happening to me? I can’t find any albatross tied to my neck!!!”