It is Over

Exun ended today.
Three little words have never ever been so understated, and decribed so much in so little.
For all of you shits you think that three other little words do the same job a lot better, and explain a far more complex function, in the words of Maanick Nangia, "Go Boil Your Head".
Exun 2004...it was a success. Wonderful event, organised very well, and even overcame the precarious intricacies of Murphy's Law, through sheer grit and determination. Because, as you all must be aware, everything that could go wrong, did.
Anyhow, I had a great time over the last two days. I have never seen an event in any school organised with as much love and dedication as Exun, and I've organised quite a few in school myself. The difference, of course, is Mr. Mukesh. While the incharge students are almost always eager about organising, usually, the teachers in charge have a more cynical attitude about it. Not Mr. Mukesh, he absolutely loves putting together Exun, and does the job of an enabler, rather than a delegator. If we feel something can be made possible, he will go ahead and help us make it possible.
Anyhow, enough about that. All the technical details you can of course get on the full write up which shall probably be availible on the natural log as soon as Karan has the phursat to write it.
I will, however, sunao some of the more fun kissas, on a more personal level.
Firstly, the bit of the walkie talkies.
Now, as the event is conducted in five or six different locations simultaneously all over school, all the local incharges walk around with Walkie Talkies, to ensure everything is going smooth, and cross communication is done well. What this doesn't explain is how much fun using these little things are, I mean, Mobile Phones are just stupid compared to a local network walkie talkie.
Of course, some of us have more fun than others. Take for example, Nisheeth Sharma. He finds the nessecity to get messages across clearly, and takes great care to make sure this gets done.
Take for example, Nisheeth requesting for volunteers at the Registration Desk.
"Send me Volunteers. Send me Volunteers. Send me Volunteers. (Repeat ad nauseum)."
"There are too many volunteers, there are too many volunteers, take them all back"
On the other hand, you had Gudi, who used the Walkie Talkie to great effect, to show us all how truly bad a singer he is.
Which brings us to another interesting story. I participated in the Group Discussion(as a non-competetive dude, of course) event, an event that I basically rule at. Anyhow, as I wasn't particularly competing in it, I decided to have a little fun. This was, of course, aborted by the judges of the first round, as they nicely provided the topic "What are the implications of Mobile Devices, that have inbuilt cameras and video with voice recording in today's world?"
Needless to say, my heart was in my mouth everytime one of the other participants started off with "I've heard about this incident..."
Anyhow, I got my revenge in the finals, where I went wild. That is a much longer, and funnier story, and I shall only provide it first person, orally. It loses its fun effect on a blog.
Chhe.
My other big job for the day revolved making about 1000 announcements, regarding events starting, events ending, events ke results, general "You are needed to be here" type announcements, and other strange ways of placating judges.
The judges however, were really sweet. Ishaan even gave me a patty to eat, from his lunch box, as I was really hungry, and could not take lunch, and Chhavi did not mind my several failed attempts to randomly flirt with her, for no particular reason other than that I was bored.
(I think it has something to do with the fact that they all failed: Mental note: Learn to Flirt)
Anyhow, that is all. Have fun in life. I sure have.

It is Coming

WHAT a busy day.
It rained all night ,by the way, which meant I was freezing my extremities off in the morning, and had my first hot water bath of the season. My geyser has decided that it is acceptable to make strange, gurgling noises and generally scaring the life out of me. This, I think is due to the fact that one of the few vivid nightmares I've had in my life has involved exploding Geysers, and me being in the loo when they decided to go kabloom.
Anyhow, this lead to me almost missing the bus, and quite frankly, I blame it all on my subconcious, it's really screwing around with my life.
Anyhow, I get to school, head straight to Mamta Sharma's office, where I plan to catch her first thing in the morning, before the rest of the riff raff, to press her to finish my letter of Recco. That she, at the end of the day, did not do this is another long, and very very sad story, and I don't really like narrating those. If you want to hear rants, there are far nicer blogs that provide such services.
Anyhow, I could not even get the simple task of getting first meeting with her, because, as I was the first chappie hanging around the general administrative offices area, Mrs Chona spots me, and sends me on an errand to fetch her an appointments list.
This, because it is only availible on one computer in the school, but I won't tell you which one, nyah nyah, that secret dies with me.
Anyhow, after all this work was done, I actually managed to meet the Rep, and sent off my Blue Blazer to be changed, so that it fits me, and not mean girls who need anger management therapy.
Anyhow, after this great deal of work, I shooted off to Modern School Barakhamba Road, for a quiz. The quiz was great, the quizmaster was great, the organisation was shabby at best, and there was just one tiny flaw in the plan. They only allowed one team per school to qualify onto stage, so even though we missed out qualifying first, by half a frikkin point, and couldn't make it on stage. As a result, it wasn't even competition for our other team, and they romped away to a convincing victory. It continues, of course, Maria's unbeaten record, with DPS winning every single thing she's ever been for, and most things I have.
We had our revenge, of course, and picked up every single one of the chocolates thrown out to the audience for answering passed questions. Serves em right, not letting us on stage. It would have been an easy DPS one two, with a very hard fought battle for the one-two.
Anyhow, I return, and immediately start Exun Work.
I was first incharge of silly Spokesperson Stuff, such as writing out the speechy things I'm going to blab about tomorrow. Then, we got down to the more fun and exicting job of creating the Datamining game, a fun new event at Exun.
After 5 hours of doing random work, involving various aspects, including getting yelled at by Herr. President a lot, I finally finished a hard days night, and returned here, to write about it all.

So I did.
Welcome to Exun, ladies and gentlemen, the fun starts tomorrow.

The End is Nigh

Remember I said this was going to be a busy month? Well, the last four days are going to be the busiest. Lets run them through, for my mental well being.

Friday, early morning, I reach school, head straight for Mamta Sharma's office, in the hope that my recco letter is done. If so, I yell out loud cries of exultance, and put all my college application stuff in a big brown envelope, and get ready to send it on its merry way.
If it hasn't been done, then well, I'm in a spot of bother, and must wait till later in the afternoon before I can get anything of any significance in order.
Then, immediately proceeding this, a wave function may collapse, and I may go for a quiz to Modern School, Barakhamba Road. One feels the need to win there, as old enemities die hard. While there isn't much competition from MSBK anymore, there's always a bit of rubbing in that must go on whenever we encounter them chappies.
Anyhow, I return to school in the afternoon, to stay back, complete my application, and then aide in the organisation of Exun. That'll take up pretty much all of Friday afternoon and evening. The late evening and night I suspect will be spent in the company of a couple of Germans, the upside of which is that I'll probably get some pretty decent food. Another upside is that these nice fellows have also brought along a couple of boxes of "Hanutas", which are really incredible hazelnut chocolates that you only get in Germany. This sort of stuff doesn't even make it to Duty Free.
Reflecting upon this, I think I'm really lucky that I have so much international, well mostly European, exposure. Papa's customers have come from all over Europe, and the world, and I've got to interact with people from everywhere, and get to know first hand about a lot of countries. It's like a one to one exchange programme, except, I don't get to go visit them, but, such as I have always held, is life.
As a result, (warning, will now proceed to gloat) I also have great international exposure to chocolates. I've eaten em from all over the bleedin' world, and have sampled countless brands which you just don't see anywhere outside the local country. I also have an aquirred taste of several kinds of cheese, artichokes, strange things that go in salads, hell, I have an aquirred taste for Salads, most people won't even touch those, forget the stranger things that go into them.
Right, back to my busy four days. The weekend will be completely spent at Exun, where I have been given the duty of making announcements, in a very official manner. This is not a good idea, I have tried to explain, as I don't do things very well in a very official manner, but such is the nature of things.

In exactly a month and a half, another very important wave function will collapse, one that may change the course of the next four years of my life. Ever had that wonderful feeling of being Nervous, Scared, exicited and hopeful all at the same time?

Hints

I don't get subtle hints. This is because, well, they're subtle, and I'm not the most observant person around. As many people have pointed out time and time again, I am, in fact, one of the few people who has actually failed to notice an Orange Wall at Vidz's house. They will also point out that my entire purpose of visiting the house was to observe this orange wall, but that is absolutely untrue, and you shouldn't go around believing everything people say. They are quite frequently mistaken about most things, and generally make an ass of themselves in the long run. In my defence, (if such a thing does truly exist) it was something like a Somebody Else's Problem field at work, I mean, lets be honest, who goes into a room and actually says, "Oh, that wall is Orange". Its not one of those things that readily occurs to you, is it?

However, I too am one of those people, which leaves you in a fix, doesn't it?
Ah, yes, subtle hints. I don't get them, like I said, and for some odd reason, I and a lot of other people are expected to. Further than that, I do not even get pronounced large hints, so as a public service announcement, I'd just like to tell everyone that they should, like me, leave subtleness at the door, and just come right up and say it. This will surely make life easier, as well as far more interesting, and as one part of my life is decidedly starting to wind down, I won't mind a last stage gasp of interest.
Continuing on that point, I've resolved to have a good deal of fun in my last month and a half of active school life, and not the usual kind of "ah, isn't life swell" kind of fun, the mean and nasty kind, where you end up walking the edge of getting seriously injured by small, yet violent and agressive creatures.

On a final note, everyone who wants to try and comment on the previous post, don't. It'll be deleted. I don't know why I even wrote the damn thing. I'm not "like" anything, and there are a thousand different sides to my Multiple Personality Disorder that no one has seen. Basically, no comments please, on that one, it'll save me the bother of deleting them.

Personality Soak

I'd love to give a trackback to this one, but like a ninny, I didn't include the facility. Anyhow, this post is directly as a result of reading respected Saar TheBOFi's latest post on how and why he is...TheBOFi. It got me thinking on the whole multiple personality deal, and why we are what we are, and well, since I'm a self-obssessed arrogant bastard, more specifically, why I am what I am(and that's all that I am). (Excuse me, please)

STATUATORY WARNING: MAXIMUM SENTI LEVEL WILL BE REACHED DURING THIS POST

Yeah, now for those who're reading on, let us continue. Till about six years ago, I was pretty much a jackass, and not the kind I've turned into today. Personalityless mindless twerp, who watched cartoons all day would be a better way to describe it. Twit who felt worthless most of the time, with serious confidence issues would be another. And around about that time, I decided that it was no way to live. I mean, come on, you don't want to go through adolescence like that, childhood's fine, there's not much to do, but I refused to spend my teens unhappy. They were supposed to be trying enough.
So, one realises that it's time for a change. Now, I'd love to say that this was a concious descion at that point, but these things didn't become concious efforts till say class 9, where I needed yet another overhaul, after joining DPS. Till then, it was more of a subconcious need to change the way things were going in life.
Anyhow, the point being, I became different. My first personality overhaul required me to focus on the little stuff I was good at, at that time academics and english mostly, and do a darn decent job at em. From here, one could build on confidence, and I evolved one of my first ever personality types: Egomania.
Egomania does wonders, let me tell you, for your confidence, and when your confidence is high, its easier to get bright ideas, and work on things you're not so hot at.
Right, so now I was an egocentric prat, good at a few core things, useless at most else, still a runt, and still with major interpersonal issues. These were being strengthened by my old school, as well as certain incidents occuring in life at that point, so another major change was needed.
Thus, when the final choice had to be made by me, to change school, even though I was entering the scariest ass school ever for a new admission from a sheltered world, I said yes, and thus started the worst year of my life.
Class nine, of RKP, that is. It was quite terrible, but as they say, that which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. I learnt a lot of things over the course of that year, and lead to major personality overhaul no. 2. I had to learn to mix well will people I didn't like, and I had to seriously expand my skill base.
I think I read more books this year than the previous three combined. I did pretty much everything except study, actually. However, I took a step back, and became even further introverted, into a shell types.
Anyhow, it was at this end that I went through my third personality overhaul.
Like I said, it had now become concious, and I was kinda bruised. In Shri Ram, even if I wasn't exactly loved, I was respected. I was capable. Here I was nothing. That had to change, and fast. Thus, I picked up the final things I needed, an extroverted nature, and drive(not the car, the ambition type thing).
How did I do this? Well, obviously, its not something you can just turn on inside you. You can't just decide, hey I'm going to be an extrovert today. However, I think my greatest skill has been the ability to copy and soak up whatever I see around me.
So I want to say thank you to a few people. Thank you to Vidz, for giving me my outgoing nature. Thank you to Sonali, for giving me my creativity and insight. Thank you to Eaps for giving me my political grounding. Thank you to all my friends, for allowing me to snitch up little bits of what's so exceptionally great about you, and try to incorporate it into myself. Still, there are a good few more things I'd like to change about myself, but I've got the time.
It's been a little over a year and a half since I entered my last great personality overhaul. "The Elated Buddha" is not just my MSN nick, it's my way of life. I haven't stopped smiling since. It's been a long time coming, a lot of bad things have come in the way, but hey, nothin's gonna change my world.
I fell sick last week, and falling sick was one of the things that really used to throw me, I'd get really upset, and start sulking. This time, it didn't ruffle me at all.

EDIT
I read through this once, and yeah, I guess it could sound a bit mopey. Which is strange, cos I really haven't been sad for a long time now, I was just bringing up the past. Its more like an artist, who's looking back at his work, and says "aaaaaaaah", except I'm not quite done yet.

That's the thing about the past. There was this thing in the papers the other day, about how cut trees never heal their wounds, they just grow over them, the cuts still remain. I guess that's the same with people and their...more fraught moments of their respective pasts. You can't ever forget them, they're always there. It's a wound that's a part of you, but you can grow over it.

So, yeah, this is not my style really, and I'm not exceptionally good at it, and like I've mentioned, I'm biased towards doing things I'm exceptionally good at.
So that's it, eh.

Across the Universe

I've been listening to a lot of nice music today. One of the songs has been Across the Universe, by the Beatles. The refrain, or chorus as they say, is "Nothin's gonna change my world".
This is how I feel right now.
Its been one of those days, y'know, when mothers make you get up and do stuff, such as sell TV's, pick up bikes, and go to such horrible places as Panchkauni (somewhere near Karol Bagh) when the Delhi Metro construction is in full swing.
But even with terrible traffic, an afternoon where I couldn't nap, even though I had not much to do, and associated grumblings of upset persons, the fact is that for the next few days, nothin's gonna change my world.
Its the holiday season, ladies and gentleman. The food is becoming wonderful, the terrible music I've had to hear over the Navratras due to obnoxious peeche waale neighbours is over, there aren't too many Patakas yet, I could go on.
But I won't.
Suffice to say, I'm happy. Happier, actually, I'm just a step behind HHJJ mode, and if something really nice happens over the next week, goodbye ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to be living in another world.
Across the universe.

Perfect, Baby!

SAT 2 Writing Score: 800

SAT 2 Maths Level 2 C Score: 800

Overall, 1600 on 1600.

I know this is a bit of De Ja Vu, but "need I say more"?

Ultimate Tashan

Industrialist Anil Nanda arrested, JC till Oct 29

Now, this has got to be most ultimate tashan that anyone has ever thought of, it even beats the Maybach Mr. Manikchand bought for his bitiya raani.

Mr. Nanda buys a diamond studded Cartier Watch from UK, and gets a VAT rebate of 12% on it. Not wanting to miss out on a cool 6 lakhs, he takes the rebate, which UK customs then reports to our very own Department of Revenue and Income (DRI).

Following this, they arrest the chap when he lands back in India, news story breaks and pretty much every newsreading chappie knows/will know about it by tomorrow.

Basically, you buy this diamond watch for tashan, to show off and say, "Look at my fancy super-expensive Diamond studded watch".
Thanks to this, Mr. Nanda won't even have to say "Look at my diamond studded watch", pretty much whole of India will say, "haha, where's your diamond studded watch", and pretty much everyone knows about it.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a move of brilliance. That is Ultimate Tashan.

In Sickness and in Health

Right, I thought I was well today, and it turns out, I wasn't. There are many reasons to this.
Firstly, my fever's all but gone, and my nose is clear. However, I have developed, largely in part due to some disgusting ayurvedic Churan that my mother force feeds me(The purpose of this Churan, by the way, is to sooth my throat), a horrible horrible cough, which randomly breaks out whenever the hell it feels like it. Take for example, maths class.
"We must integrate twice, to get two consta-----COUGH COUGH"
This gets quite distracting for hapless maths teachers, who on the same day must fill in my Projected Marks for board exams.
Not only in class, this terrible cough involved itself in polite conversation as well, where many of my most terrible jokes were interrupted because I couldn't speak consistenly for over two minutes without breaking out into a fit of coughing.
Thus, I am back to bedrest at home. Thank heavens that we've got a couple of holidays, otherwise, bad things would have happened.
Anyhow, the reason I dragged myself out of bed, and trudled up down to school is that our Education Counsellor, Ms. Mamta Sharma is going on a week long trip to Korea with the Principal, for reasons that are beyond as lowly students. She's doing this right in the middle of Early Desicion time for colleges, so we were required to finish today, what most people would be spending the next two weeks over. Thus, one had to go running from teacher to teacher to solicit projected marks/letters of recommendations and other such thingummies. You have no idea the amount of information these colleges require about you, you might as well tell them to go read your blog, if you have one.
The interesting thing is, the college I'm apping to, U Penn, does actually frequent Blah! My little statistics meter thingummy regularly tells me that I get readers from this esteemed college, so do leave a comment if you're one of them!
Right, so as I had said, I had also written essays and statements for the app. and had submitted the aforementioned to Madam Counsellor for approval. Along with this, I gave Shutterbug, my new favourite story of mine, as I wanted to submit that as the additional talent type thing. Since I'm no good at art, I thought I might as well give em a short story, which is something I'm pretty decent at constructing. Anyhow, back to the point. She told me, in no more convoluted words, that I must not use the word "Gripe" in my story, as it is a casual word, and will make the admissions board think that I have a laid back attitude towards life in general. She asked me to remove this word, and instead use "Complain".
Right.
Let this sink in, for a while.
I'm serious.
These were her words. I'm not exxagerating.
She also told me the phrase "his health was shot" is unnecesary slang, and might be construed as me having no respect for the language.
Well, I apologise. I'm not one to gripe about my mistakes, and I'll be rightly buggered if I ever use slang again.
Yes, I'll stop trying to be funny, now.
Ashtami is tomorrow. I hope my throat is up to some nice Puri Halwa for morning breakfast, you only get to have it so often.
Right, additions have been made to my blog-roll of honour, as well as omissions. Go have a looksie.

Blokkad Dose and Scratchy Throat

After what has been a particularly long time, over a year and a half at least, I've fallen good and properly sick, whole shebang of Cold, low fever, bad throat, and general tiredness associated with being ill. This, of course, doesn't count instances of Ulcerous Stomachs, as those involve completely different circumstances. Anyhow.
My long lasting miracle cure didn't work, this time. I had monstrously large amounts of food on Sunday, but to no avail, what was fated was fated, and monday morning my body had decided that enough was enough, and it needed a good and proper break, where it would sleep for prolonged periods of time, groan, and complain and generally make a decent ass of itself. Thus I've spent most of the day placating it with Copious quantities of Tulsi Ki Chai, and have been responsible for Defoliating pretty much the entire shrub in the garden outside. No more Tulsi ki Chai for a couple of days, at least, it seems there aren't any leaves left.
I was also feeling so proud yesterday. Around nine o clock last night, I sit down and start to think.
Mere paas Chemistry Project hai.
Mere paas complete chem file hai.
Mere paas *Ma* bhi hai.
Mere paas Zukaam hai.
With that realisation, the other three kind of went to pot. Ironic, I think is the word, when you've worked your butt off to complete something by the deadline, and you realise that you still can't submit on the required day. I think the word for it begins with a "B".
Anyhow, I've resolved not to be a useless piece of so and so for the last couple of months of school life, so I made an otherwise dead day quite productive. I finished off the entire LST Legal Reasoning package, over three hours. I then sat down and watched a very interesting documentry on Termites, you won't belive the things those little buggers can get upto. They're even used for gold prospecting these days, as well as for miracle cures in Central Africa. Additionally, their Queen Termite Ant is one Mother of a creature, in quite the literal erm. During its longer than most ant existence, it gives birth to a baby every second or so. Not to be outdone is the King ant, who spends most of his sovereign life ensuring that there is a baby born every one second.
However, this is not the life.

The second documentry I saw was one about introducing Tigers into the African Savanna, to ensure they don't die out. Also very interesting. There's really something quite awe-inspiring about a tiger on the prowl, you really get what William Blake was on about when he wrote "Tyger Tyger", which is also one of my favourite poems.

What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmety?

I'm in a real quandry now. I'm feeling damn crappy, and if I go to school, I risk becoming really really crappy, and screwing up my whole week. I think I'll just give it a funk, get better quick, and spend the day doing more productive studying.

Another interest question poses itself. You're supposed to feed a cold, and starve a fever. What happens if you have both? Will Bolemia cure all your ails? I dread to give it a try.

Sunday ke Fundae

Woot! I finished off my chem project and file, which means that a major burden has been lifted from my head.
I wanted to write about a couple of things so I will.
Firstly, I'd like to put a few arbit fundas about what we read, and how it affects us.
Now, I've heard a lot of people claim how they've been majorly influenced by books, sometimes even changing the way they think or act when encountered with a piece of fiction powerful enough, and with a philosophy inviting enough.
Quite frankly , I think this is a load of hooey. And here's why.
Look, even I've read a great few books that I would feel have changed my life, if not the way I think. The question is, do these books actually change the way you think, or do they just strengthen what you already innately believe in?
I'm going for the latter. You know why? Because the same book that I love, and I accept as something altering is uniformly accepted as crap by another person. There is nothing so powerful that it can influence anyone, and everyone. Take for example, one of my favourite books, The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. Now, this is actually one of those popular ones, the life changing kind, especially at our immature, mouldable mind stage. Still, I know a good lot of people who rejected the book completely, and thought it utter crap. Still more liked it merely as a piece of fiction, and neither related nor thought of the characters as something to look up to.
On the other hand, this book appealed to things I've always innately felt. What literature thus serves to do is put your thoughts into a tangible form, ready for you to see. Things you yourself haven't thought about get projected in the book, you see them, and you think "Hey, that sounds really good!" You then think the book has opened your eyes to something new, whereas all it did was show you what you already felt was true.
This of course, is very important, as the majority of us are too thick to ever admit certain things to ourselves in the first place. Thus I advise everyone I know to stop studying/working/generally living and read a few decent books immediately. Only then can you, in the wise words of the Oracle at Delphi, Know Thyself.

Anyhow, that's enough pontificating for one day. Now onto more "Mundane Musings"
I was at a restraunt today, which was a travesty in itself, as I was with whole family, who decided to go out to eat, and realised that most of them were on fast, or in serious Saatvik Navraatre mood. Now, I think the whole concept is kind of silly, if you're going to go to hell for eating bad things, I don't think its going to make a hell of a difference if you abstain from it for a few days, but hey, that's my opinion.
Anyhow, at restaurant Ma spots a Caricature artist, and tells me to go get one. I tell her this is not the time or the place, but in general, I wouldn't mind. We both mutually agree that my face is probably a caricature artist's dream come true, its already so terribly misproportioned. It is, first of all, about five sizes too small. My mother insists that my nose is two sizes too big, my eyes are strange, and I have, as many of my friends have pointed out, about five hundred different kinds of smiles playing around at any give time.
Oh, and this is all without the ultimate caricature statement, my SuperSized Chin.
So if anyone thinks they're a half decent artist, and wouldn't mind being stuck staring at my face and drawing for an hour, or a couple, I'm giving an open supari for anyone to caricature me. It would make a nice addition to the bare walls of my room.

Going to Mount Saint Mary

This morning, a some sixteen dipsites went to Mount Saint Mary.
We succeeded.
It was, of course, a computers and economics (fun combination, no?) symposium being held there. I went for 3 events, managed to win one, and we won the whole shindig, got the Rolling Trophy, and proceeded to get the hell out of there.
Well, that's the shorter version.
I don't really feel like telling you the longer one, I've had a writing overload over the last two three days, all sortsa stuff, two three essays, a few blogs, and what not. Anyhow, I'd just like to go on to say that the school that came up with the cheer "Jeete ga Bhai Jeeta ga, DPS jeetega, MSM ne joke maara ha ha ha" was actually a pretty nice place. They have, indeed, the best school canteen in New Delhi. This is because they have not one, but two of them, run by different suppliers, and the competition thus produced forces them to price competitively, and give good quality stuff.
This is a model that I think our school should learn from. There's no reason we can't be provided good, quality food, it's just a lack of will on the part of the authorities.

Anyhow, that is all.

Blue Blazers

Today, we had the scholar badge function, the last scholar badge function for my batch. Some 230 odd of us, a priveledged few (I have a batch of 1100, okay?) were recipients of badges, blazers, ties and of course, 53 chosen few, who've been in the school long enough, and been working hard enough, and well, been generally smart-ass enough got Gold Medals, for consistent acads. Woo Hoo to them.
The point I am trying to make here is, that after two years of little or no work, and one year of exceedingly hard work(11th class science), I recieved my very own Blue Blazer(Which, by the way, is five sizes too small, and will have to be changed for something that might fit over my shoulders, and not Damini's), for consistent acads over three years, hence proving that I am not in fact, a total chump.
My exam results for this term will of course tell you otherwise, but for one day at least, I manged to feel a little bit smart, and good about myself. And hey, if I could get a decent enough score in 11th, it gives me hope that I can pick up again in 12th. Bad times are transient, and just because I fucked up once, doesn't mean I'll fuck up all my papers again.
This is also the spiel I will be taking to my teachers on Monday, when I ask them to generously fill in my Projected Board Marks, for college applications. If I believe it, then they shouldn't have much of a problem. Faith in oneself is far harder a thing to accomplish than getting others, especially teachers, to believe in you.
So in the wise words of Russel Watson, I've got faith. Faith of the heaaaaaaaaaartt.

Voices are all we heard

Let us talk of many things, as long as they are not our exam results.

Today, DPS RKP organised The "Voices" Quiz, and event I am glad to say I had no hand in organising, for several godawful reasons. I did, however, manage to participate in this blessed quiz, and while my team crapped out of luck in the finals, after a brilliant semi-final round, the other DPS team did manage to win, so all is well for king and country, I suppose.
Now, most people have this impression of quizzers as a boring and humdrum lot, where nothing of any note ever happens in our lives. Aranyaka, of the MIS team, and previously referred to as "Melange Boy" went out of his way this week to prove this common misconception wrong. If anything else can be defined as going above and beyond the call of duty to cure nasty stereotypes, please tell me, and I will immediately publicise that event/piece of work.
Anyhow, this is how the story goes. Sometime last week, Aranyaka decides to go for some CBSE sports meet, as he imagines himself as somewhat of a stud. He went for what I have been told is the 200 meter sprints, and besides not having a spectacular performance at the event, decided to make it up by playing a game of truth or dare.
Now, you'd think that Truth or Dare kind of goes out of fashion after class eight or nine, but no, these guys play for frikkin high, and crazy, and downright stupid stakes. Thus, when our Local Hero is asked to extracate a polo from the Delhi State Shot Put Champion's (A girl who has been described to me with my complexion, Prateek's body size and build, and Manav's breasts) mouth, that too, with the profoundly simple tool of his tongue, he didn't back out as chicken. No, he went ahead with it.
His justification of course was, it was a dare, and you've got to be a man to do the dares. You don't need to be a man, you need to be exceedingly stupid to even imagine going anywhere near such a woman(?), if the provided description is accurate, let alone shove your tongue in her mouth. This, however, is not a major problem for him, as random bouts of insanity are his speciality.
Now, the story isn't that simple. No, this gets better than it already is, because watching this heinous, unimaginable act are ratting juniors. These juniors, horrified at what they have seen, go and inform authorities in the school of what's been going on in certain CBSE sports meets. The authorities generally get very shocked about life in general in what they imagine to be one of Delhi's most Accha Baccha schools (These are guys who pray for 15 mins every morning). They promptly suspend the entire tongue hockey squad, and the protagonist of our little story gets reprived from suspension, only to get banned from all interschool quizzes.
Thus, the MIS team is minus one of their top guns, who instead bunks school to come as audience for the quiz. The team itself gets jacked without him, and barely manages to get through to finals, and doesn't do exceedingly well while over there. This is a team that managed to answer "The Rolling Stones" to the question of who sung "Born to be Wild".
Anyhow, that's pretty much all there is to that.
I'd love to say jaast to certain someones out there, who really deserve it, for being mean sadistic people in general, but I'm now a compassionate and balanced soul, so I won't.

The Spread of Blah!

The word Blah seems to being used a lot, for remarkably stupid reasons over the blogosphere these days. To all of those who've converted what is supposed to be an expression of complete uncaring frustration, combined with a general lack of interest in what everyone else has to say to me, into a phrase with no meaning whatsoever, except as a space filler, I'd like to ask you all to just.

Sunday and it's Religious Implications

Ah, Sunday, God's (Well, the Christian Version) holy day of rest. Moreover, a wonderful Sunday, with no Monday Test the next day, nothing to worry about, no pressures at all. What would you do on such a remarkably perfect day? Sleep? Damn straight. Have a big bad breakfast? Absolutely. Laze around the whole day, catching up on the papers, telly and whatever other form of Media that does not involve the Indian Cricket Team? Surely!

Unfortunately, we're not Christians, and our Gods have no compulsions about Sunday Sloth. To compound these religious problems, mother woke up today with a dream. A dream of Clean Cupboards, and Organised Desks, of a house where one does not have to search for items, where things can be found immediately, and where junk is where it belongs, in the trash.
Now, I am usually a pig, but I fully support this dream of hers. We shouldn't have to live in such a backward, delerict house. Things should be the way they are.
However, these dreams should not be fullfilled all in one day. God worked on six, may I remind you, and RESTED on Sunday. In the abscence of God, mother dearest took over the role, and decided to fix everything else wrong with the world.
However, God is a manager, not an active element. She works through us lowly mortals, and when it comes to doing the actual hard work, its down to us. Thus, my great plans of spending most of the day on my ass were somewhat thwarted by the fact that I had to first Clean up my desk, which by the way was the second largest dump site in the known world. This took a good one hour, and my satisfaction of finishing this job was somewhat stalled by the fact that I now had to help my father organise and weed out some two decades of Audio Cassetes built up in our house. I was, of course, sneezing away to glory, as this aged collection throws up quite a bit of dust.
After a short break for lunch, it was off to work I went again. This time, I had bigger work to do. The worlds largest dump site awaited clearing. My Clothes Cupboard had to be cleaned.
From this cupboard magically appeared clothing of every single other member of my family. Clothes long thought to be lost, stolen, or given away magically appeared. Clothes thought to have been thrown away, as they were torn and faded magically reappeared.
As a result of all this, I spent all of three hours trying to read Vir Sanghvi's Rude Food Column. I finally convinced ma that I would not start the cupboard till I was given ten free minutes to read the damn thing.
After the whole cupboard debacle, ma decided it was time for her to take a break, and went off to the barbers(are they called barbers if women go to them?), so I finally got a breather.
With nothing else to do for the day, I played Sweep for an hour and a half with Papa. Papa is a sweep and general card game champion, and in great father son tradition, has passed down quite a bit of knowledge to me. However, of the umpteen card games he taught me, Sweep was not one of them, and I had picked it up only a week ago. Thus, I got a good whipping of over 150 points, over four or five games, I forget how many. But I'm learning fast, and shall add this to my many great skills. My love for freecell must stem from the many Sundays and lazy summer days I've whiled away playing cards with my family. Papa of course insists that this is what normal families do on lazy Sundays in my generation, so I'd like to put an open test on this blog. How many people reading this, under the age of 18 know the following things?
a) How to play Sweep, Pabho, and Bridge(If I taught you, it doesn't count)
b) What Nichlu and Titlu are in Scored Rummy(This is for bonus points)
c) What the scale of cards is on Teen Patti

There we go. Anyone at all knowing the answer to part b) gets whatever non-material thing they would like from me, so feel free to comment away. I doubt I'll have to give up much.

Rocked Two See, and Siezed the Day

Hey, I had another really good day. When things start going right, after they go wrong, they continue in a trend, and when you have Maria by your side, life can throw few obstacles in your path.
So I had this really amazing SAT 2 Maths 2 C paper, and a pretty solid writing one too. Life, which was being the proverbial bitch, suddenly seems like the cute girl she actually is.
Jhakaas solid essay I wrote, bullshited completely, and didn't go wild at all. Basically, it was the antithesis of everything this blog is all about, and I would like to thank it( isn't it wonderful how you start reffering to your journal as a sort of living breathing entitity after a while?) profusely for teaching me how to write in double fast time.
My center was at the other end of Delhi, at Pusa Road, and its basically far off from whereever else you want to be. So after the SAT, we planned to go to Priya for Lunch, and this took considerably longer than possibly imagined. Reasons? Poor travel plans, horrible horrible traffic, and SHEER DISTANCE! You cannot cross over half the length of Delhi during Lunchtime rush our in a short period of time. Coupled with this was the-incident-in-the-auto-ride-which-is-beyond-Prateek's(and Manav's)-overactive-imagination, so its a really great thing that I was in such an amazing mood, as all such minor bad things simply melted away. To improve this general good feeling inside, it started to rain(lightly drizzle, but who cares?), and joy was all around.

I hung out today. You might not think this is a great achievement, but its been a long time. It's an exceedingly enjoyable activity, better than getting drunk, or stoned, or any of the other prime teenage stupid pastimes. I spent an hour or so at Barista, and then took off to GK just to hang out and chat with Vidz. You ever have those days when you just don't want to go home? Well, this was one of em. So I didn't. As I reach home late evening, energy spent, batteries spent, Parents giving suggestive grins as to my wherabouts and activities, I sit down on my chair, and relax. I don't have to study for a couple of days, and you don't have any idea how happy this makes me right now.

Bliss.

It's All about the Pentiums

First and foremost...WooHOOO! No more exams, for a couple of months, and just a couple of SAT 2 subject tests to give tomorrow. This makes me very very happy. I think I've started hating exams a lot now, because I'm really sick of giving them. We have to give em way too often in class 12, and its not right. For crissakes, when the hell are we supposed to learn anything when we're always studying for some exam? Its wrong, its inhuman, and it gets me in a horrid mood, where for just a magic moment, when I'm done studying and done listening to the beatles, and done with the day's daily chores, and put my head to rest, and oft upon my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood

Okay, that was getting to be a bit too much, but basically I end of thinking gaaah, what the hell is the point of it all, I don't want to do this anymore.
But then, you realise, hey, its a matter of two three months, and its going to be a wonderful two three months, and its the last few days you have left of school.
At this point I get horrendously senti (as per my disgustingly enemotional standards), so decide that there are better things to do than this, fall asleep, get up early in the morn, and do stomach crunches to get rid of disgusting flab that sitting on your ass all day doing nothing has a habit of putting on you.
Again, this is flab by my very exacting standards.

But anyhow, all this is over.
Right, now on to main topic of discussion, before I dilly dally any more. Today, after exam, was the Senior Exun meeting, where, as a record, we not only managed to decide events, schedules, food, and what not, but also got invitations made and sent, AVH booked(more on that later), ate pizza, chatted a lot, and basically organised in one afternoon what should have taken half a week. In fact, for all you wannabe participants, the info should be up on the site by late tonight, which just shows you how incredibly efficient Exun is.
Here's a breakup of how things went at this meeting. I arrive, along with Skaran at the Egurucool Lab, I tell him, sorry for being late, for I arrived at 10 35, as I pointed out to him it was physically impossible to arrive on time at 10 30. To prove me right, all other members show up 15 mins later, why I get hot and bothered about the complete lack of punctuality in an otherwise well organised set up. Following this, we man the iMac and HCl Beanstalk, and start preparing everything from invitations, to letters to the principal, to event shedules. Then, me and Karan decide to do mounting, and mount our iPods on the Mac, to exchange music. Then, Mukesh Sir gets upset, because we aren't working any more, so starts yelling at us for listening to music. Thus, we must work a little more. Soon after, the Pizza arrives(oh, yes, we ordered Pizza), and six of us polish of 4 large pizzas. This is quite understandable, as of the six included likes of me, Nisheeth, and Maanick, otherwise known as the Dheet Punjabi Squad.
Then, we got back to fluid exchange between mounted iPods, and I've now got more new stuff from Skaran's iPod, and he will now enjoy such wonders as the Hitchhiker's radio series.
I am, of course, telling you all this simply as an excuse to make very bad intended mounting puns while writing. But this is not the extent of my depravity.
The true depth of my depravity, I discovered last night, when much to my wonder and amazement, I managed to braid my leg hair.
This is what happens during exam season. What to do, we are like that only.
Will my life turn out to be as terrible as its been for the last two weeks?
Will October be the most disastrous month of my life?
What is the Porcupine cure, and why shouldn't anyone be allowed to see it?
Will you ever find out the answers to these questions?
Find out, on the next, now more regular, and generally more interesting Daily Dose of Blah!
Oh, and in the words of Lowly Exun Members
I'm back.

A little Less Conversation

Yay, I'm almost done with my exams, and tomorrow is a piece of cake paper, or well, at least it should be. After the paper will begin the busiest month of my short life(I'm starting to dread the day when I'm not allowed to say short life anymore).
Anyhow, it gives me the opportunity to write at leisure today. Anyhow, all is good practice for writing and thinking fast for Saturday's SAT 2 writing paper. Ugh. It's like the examinations never end.
Right, back to the point. Actually, that is pretty much the point. Why is it that most teenage conversations, hell, most conversations of any age group, in my opinion are generally about nothing at all? Why must we talk, chat, communicate incessantly, even when we have nothing serious or important to talk about? Why can I spend an hour and a half discussing implications of Beatles songs, and which ones are the nicest, when it clearly will not so much as change the ones I am going to listen to, nor my enjoyment of them?
Well, it's simple, really.
See, human nature, which is so incredibly screwed up, realised that if we did intend to communicate only very important, very critical information all the time, strange things would start to happen to us. If our conversations revolved around the great problems of the world, how to solve them, or indeed, the great philisophical questions of life, even stranger things would happen to us. If this is all we could talk about, the worst possible thing on the planet would happen to us. We'd turn into Commie Pseuds, with long hair, jholas, and a prediliction for entering colleges like St. Stephens. We'd become pompous and pretentious bastichs, and spend the rest of our lives as economists, or journalists. We'd probably end up working/appearing on NDTV a lot, and become everything the world generally despises.

There is, however, another extreme. We could spend our entire lives discussing the implications of Beatles Songs, or the plot lines of sad soap operas, or the benefits of the new T 5000 K44 mobile phone, that has super zoom flashy thingie facility, and can arm India's Nuclear Arsenal if you press a few buttons the wrong way.
This would also be a bad thing. That is, talking incessantly of such things, not arming India's Nuclear Arsenal. If we did indulge, or do indulge in this, we'd risk turning into people who will spend their entire adulthood involved with Soap Operas. This is not a bright future.
Thus, there is a middle ground. I suggest you find someone with hoom you can have a decent enough intellectual conversation every so often, and spend the rest of the time telling Horrendously Bad Jokes(Who all read the sciencie jokes, or were unfortunate enough to listen to me tell em?), or the like.
Did I mention I've been listening to a lot of Beatles Songs lately? I think it's starting to tell, I'll have to change my "current obsession" soon.

Relief

The worst is over. Physics, Chem, Maths, they're done?
How did I fare? Terribly. Maths, as previously stated, was a disaster. Physics, an even bigger one. Chem, redeemed me in some ways, but that by no means means(Haha, Karan, suck on that, double word usage, and it's still grammatically correct) that I am getting 90% in it. Should be between 80 to 90, depending on how kind the checking teacher is. Basically, I'm losing marks in these disgusting things called chemistry numericals, which require you to multiply, take logs, and generally maneuver 6 digit numbers in a multitude of different ways. Why are we not allowed Calcs? Does actually taking out the values of insane computations test our concepts at all? Is it really a decent way to torture otherwise innocent, masoom bacche? Isn't Mandira Bedi enough???
Answers to these questions and more will never be provided to the likes of us, so why bother.
On a tangential note, thanks to brother dearest, I have received seven CD's worth of music, and of course, The COMPLETE hitchhiker's guide radio series.
It is, by the way, brilliant. Simon Jones is perfect as the book, and it has that whole 70's feel to it, the kind absolutely missing in our decade.
You make say that that( See, I did it again, nyah nyah) is because this isn't the 70's. Well, that's a load of crap, the spirit of a decade doesn't die as soon as it ends.

In simple, and uncomplicated terms, to sum up my last week and a half, quite a terrible one I might add, I'd just like to say
BLAH!

The Mouse Bought It, and Other Stories

For the last god knows how long, a small, very fast, very annoying mouse has been running all around our house, and generally making its prescence felt. Mice aren't a good household's favorite thing in the whole wide world, so it was decided that it would have to go.
Unfortunately, the mouse had other plans.
First, we set non-invasive traps, the kind where you put a bait of something revolting, and expect the mouse to bite, and get trapped inside, so we could politely eject him out of our humble abode, and back onto the city streets. Nobody likes an uninvited guest. This, however, did not work. Even after I suggested we load the traps with something more appetizing than cold bread, it did not work. I'm sure if we baited it with a piece of chocolate, something would have happened, but hey, I'm not giving up my chocs for a two bit rodent.
Next, we got nasty, and put out rat poison. The poison promised that the mouse would eat it, run around a bit for a couple of days, and then decide to politely leave the house, and die outside. Why it would want to do this is beyond me, and well, the mouse seemed to have other plans too. After a week of waiting, Mr. Mouse was still around.
I had of course, suggested getting a cat, but Mother hates cats, for some odd reason. She says there are already too many self-centered attention starved things in the house, without bringing in another one.
Anyhow, we had pretty much given up all hope, and accepted this mouse as a part of our home, when yesterday, out of the blue, it decided to kick the bucket; it rolled over and died just outside my room's door. This is strange, because till now, my room was the one place the damn thing hadn't frequented, and it seemingly didn't get the opportunity, as it died on entry point. Go figure.
No it did not die of the noxious fumes, if any of you are planning to comment so. My room smells perfectly fine, thank you very much.
Well, the mouse bought it, and society was pleased in general.

Other Stories

Yesterday, I had fun in the evenings. We were invited to a anniversary dinner of family friends, so I finally got to try out Punjabi By Nature.
There's only one thing i can say about the place. It lives up to its name. Everything is very Punjabi, the servings are huge, the meat is meaty, and the veggie stuff generally doesn't match up. You'd think its some poncy restraunt charging the usual high price for the tiny bit of food, but no, this place's servings are king size. You could feed a family of four on one item.
Now, it rained a decent amount yesterday, and I'm really considering carrying my camera around everywhere I go. There are some moments that really need to be captured.
For instance, after a good six hours of rainfall, at one at night, after I exited the Movie theare (did I mention I went for The Terminal after dinner? Brilliant movie), most of Vasant Lok Market was flooded. The awnings outside the store had been taken over by a bunch of cows, and one was convinently blocking all exit points, access denied. That would have made a classy picture, because, well, it says a thousand words, and all that. I can't exactly describe how the damn thing was placed, just take my word for it, it was hilarious.

The Terminal is a really good movie, one of Speilberg's best. Tom Hanks acts brilliantly. The story...well, I can't really describe it without giving away a lot, and I guess you've read the trailiers. Let me just say that it captures moments really well, something like a cinematic Shutterbug.

I've discovered that I'm getting Shutterbug Syndrome. Its all my depraved minds fault. I'm going to go yell at it a bit.
This is what happens when you finish most of your physics course, and have a day left to cover one topic.
Blah!