The week that was

The previous week has been one helluva eventful week for me. It started with a trip to M.G Road one evening in search of books and magazines. Found an alleyway where a nice gentleman was selling old magazines and novels. The stacks and stacks of readers digests evoked fond memories from school when i used to read them during boring classes. I picked up a few for as less as 15-20 rupees a piece depending on the year of publication. From there, i headed to Bookworm where i lost track of time, going through a multitude of books, some new, some yellowed, but each one of them shouting out at me to buy them. I had an eye on the Ayn Rand collection but the price was a turn off. So i settled for a good copy of Gone with the Wind and a few Enid Blytons for sister dear.
It was while i was at Bookworm that i heard about the Bangalore Book Festival. Told about it to a few friends and all of them jumped at the idea of going there. So off i went on Wednesday to palace grounds with a bunch of friends and loads of cash. And oh my god! My two eyes and three hours of time were not enough to take in the stuff on display there. After a lot of searching and sorting, i bought 7 second hand books- an Irving Wallace, David Baldacci, 2 Agatha Christies, Michael Crichton, a chic lit book by an unknown author and the Kishore Biyani book- It happened in India. All this for just 490 bucks, without burning a hole in my wallet. If only i had more time I'd have emptied it for sure! The Wodehouse and Stephanie Meyer collection cost a bomb, so i have to be satisfied with the pictures only here :).


Thursday came and we restless souls were on our feet again, this time for a movie- APKGK. The reviews looked okay, but what the hell, when there is Ranbir Kapoor in it, i can watch any movie ;).Left work early that day to catch the early evening show at Innovative Multiplex. The movie turned out to be really silly but have i laughed till my sides ached or what! I was laughing more at the movie than with the movie. But Ranbir's performance was top notch and comic timing was brilliant. Go watch it at least once. For me, for 100 bucks at Innovative, it was a great deal!


Skipped going home this weekend. Instead, went to the Groundnut Mela in Basavangudi. The whole of the bull temple road was filled with stalls selling not only groundnuts but a variety of fare that made it look like a village fair.

I realized what the charm of the Old Bangalore areas was all about. With rows of stalls displaying colorful stuff, my camera had a gala time. To satisfy the appetite that we had worked from all of that walking, we had the North Karnataka spread at Kamat Buglerock. I can say that this was by far among the most gratifying meals that i had in Bangalore. The violinists playing classical music in the backdrop was an added plus! The only thing i did not do was probably wipe my banana leaf clean ;). A nice ending to a memorable week. I now know that roaming the malls is not the only option to pass time here. There is absolutely no dearth for avenues and options in Bangalore to go all out and spend money and time :).

Hurrah to long weekends!

It has been a more month since i moved to Bangalore and i can't get myself to believe how quickly time flies! And how dramatically my life has changed in such a short span of time! Though my favorite hobby still remains watching movies, i hardly spend time doing it anymore, coz i don't get that kind of time. And also that there has hasn't been a great movie that's released recently! Instead, i spend my time planning for the day- what to study, what to cook, shopping, playing scrabble and singing with my friends i share the flat with ( I really don't know how else to refer to them! Flat mates sounds so impersonal! I guess i'll call them G and J henceforth).

I've also learnt the art of giving my parents an account of the whole day over the phone. Initially, it felt weird, going through my day's activities with them and asking them to do the same. I left out most of the things, did not know what to mention and what to leave out. A typical conversation would involve what i had for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the highpoint of the day and plans for the next day. It would never occur to me that they needed more details than that so as to differentiate the day from that previous one! Now, i remember to go through little things like some joke that happened at the office, the effort that went into dishing out a meal, a recipe that turned out bad, some new food joint we discovered or a new place that we found to shop at.

The whole transition thing did not really take that long. During college, everyday was like a day off. I did not have to apply my head unless there was a test and i could spend all my time day dreaming, chilling out with friends or sleeping. Not so anymore! I don't have the luxury of sleeping late on weekdays anymore. Every morning is a running race. If only i could give up on that extra ten minutes of sleep after the alarm goes off! But i am certain that running like this each morning can surely help me knock off a few pounds ;).

On the bright side, i have come to value the weekends even more. I so look forward to coming home during weekends, getting pampered by my parents, quarelling with my sis to reclaim all my stuff that she's taken over, going on a ride and sleeping till late. My mom feels for me that i don't get to watch TV in Bangalore and i get to keep the remote whenever i am home. Yay! I never got to do that before since my parents would get so annoyed with my frequent channel-changing.

Once back in Bangalore, each day is spent waiting for friday to arrive. It is not so difficult anymore! And the three consecutive long weekends surely help! I am so loving it!

New beginnings

I have known this was coming, all along. For i spent the whole of the last month preparing for this day- buying stuff, getting documents ready, packing, you get the drill. The packing happened with a great deal of excitement, so much that mother dearest was under the impression that i could not wait to leave home. Somehow, i did not even feel a twinge of sadness when i went for one last time to the college to collect some certificates.
But today, as i put the last of my things into the suitcase, there is this queasy feeling in my stomach. I have never been away from home for long. This morning, i got up knowing that i won't be sleeping in that bed for hours together anymore! Seemed like the whole house was spinning around me! (Perhaps it was nausea but i am not exaggerating! ) To clear my head, i went for one last ride on the empty streets of Mysore and cried my way back home. Maybe i will get busy with my life in Bangalore to mull over this, maybe not. But today morning, i am not exactly a happy girl. I don't want to leave home! Only consolation is that i have the task of setting up a new home with friends and new experiences to look forward to. There are hopes and aspirations that life at the workplace will be challenging and fun. In the past, i have spoken at school and college about farewells being a mixture of happiness and sadness, but today i felt the full force of the feeling for the very first time! Saying goodbye is really hard. This is how i am possibly meant to feel. And the feeling might just fade away as time progresses. So bring on the wings, i am probably ready to fly!

It's raining, hallelujah!

When the month began, I had like a hundred plans about doing this and that. Top on my agenda for the holidays was to watch movies. The first week or so was wasted because of half a day long power cuts due to scanty rainfall( That's what the KEB people told me when i called to complain about the power cut). I resorted to reading and slowly got back my age old average of one book a day when the rain gods started smiling and the power situation got back to normal. The books were dumped in favor of movies and i had a nice time.
By then, it was time to look for a place to stay in Bangalore. And let me tell you, it is one of the hardest things that i have ever done in recent times. There are a thousand things to keep in mind- a place close to the office, a decent locality, many outlets close-by that dole out good food, comfort level in the house, good security, proximity to the bus stand and railway station, the budget, no water shortage and the list goes on! At the end of the two-day long hunt that spanned three areas and included both our relatives coming out to help, G and i finally found a house that almost suited our needs after a few compromises. What a relief it was! The both of us, along with Jyo are going to turn this flat into a nice and comfy home :) To think that when i started out, i was under the impression that i'd find like three or four places that i would really like and will have a hard time choosing one of them!!!
Back in Mysore, i am now spending all the time indoors, thanks to the incessant rains. There is lots of shopping pending and loads of clothes on the line that need to dry! But i am not complaining much. What better time to savor a cup of ginger chai and grab loads of sleep!! I still got about a fortnight before work starts. The usual whining and blues will begin then. Till then, i had better put my feet up and ease those worry lines!

Yay!

That is all i can say! Yay! Am done with exams! Once and for all!! The demo also went pretty smoothly. Am going to have a B.E. degree soon! It is an exhilarating feeling! (Ya,ya. Am certain about clearing all the subjects. CIPE too! Of course, the marks in that subject will be courtesy friends around me in the hall. Thanks a bunch, people, for helping me on a day when my memory failed me totally!)
Anyway, coming back to the point, like i said, i will have an engineer's degree in a few days. Got me thinking as to what prompted me to take up the course. From what i can remember, as soon as the tuitions for the 2nd year PU started, all that was drilled into my head was that my only goal that year would be to max my scores in the theory exams and the CET. All the people around me were working for it, and so was i! Engineering after CET was like a default option. It was just a matter of choosing a college depending on the rank.
Now when i look back, this degree has been at the cost of so many childhood dreams. Starting from getting into movies just so that i could get to meet Hrithik Roshan at close quarters, being a journalist, getting into advertising, being a part of a travel show, to opening a restaurant that serves the bestest food in miles! They somehow just got lost as i grew up and joined the herd in what they were doing. Just hoping that the B.E. against my name is worth all that i have inadvertently given up! And if at any point i feel it is not, i am going to go ahead and chase one of those dormant dreams! :) But for now, it is relaxation time. I am going to get enough sleep, catch up on my reading and watch loads of movies for a whole month! Happy vacation to all of you who have that luxury ;)!

Did you understood this?

I was in the college, to submit my project report and i stumbled upon the answers to the 4th cryptography internals on the notice board.Yes! The lecturer put the answers up! Whoever asked for them?! Thankfully, i did not have to take that test. And i pity all those who were forced to take it. Why?! Take a look:

Well, let me spell out a few questions for your benefit, in case you are having trouble reading it:
*What is the draw back of "mano"-alphabetic cipher? how can it be "overcomed"??
*List the characteristic Ceaser Cipher substitution which "enforces" to use brute force cryptanalysis. ( i guess it should be characteristics of..)
*What are the two unique and not necessarily compatible requirements for a sequence of random numbers? Lo and behold! The answer is a) Randomness and b) Unpredictability!!!

It is difficult to ascertain what language the man is communicating in!! That's not all, he spewed wonderful pearls in the class all the time, that i kept awake to listen to them, interpret them and have a good laugh! :) Here are a few:
*Did you understood this? ( Repeats it after explaining each topic!)
*The typewriter is going to be elapsed soon!
*Practical means, not impractical.
*When we product two numbers, the result becomes very large! ( by now you know, he meant multiply two numbers :) )
*We cannot larger the key size in any way!
*If the buffer is fulled, the connection cannot be formed easily!
*In conventional systems, there is a possibility of stoling the key!
And saving the best for the end, he pronounces eavesdropping as "evaas-dropping". I close my mouth, duck under the desk and laugh my heart out each time he says that in class!! There are many more such gems. He says them with such a straight face that you are sure that the man does not know how funny his nonchalant statements turn out to be! He even asked us to draw a round square while he was teaching us Logic Design long back! God help the juniors! I wish them luck in decrypting his statements!! :D

End of a joyride called college!

How many times have you woken up and cursed the college simply because it exists and you need to go there to attend those blasted classes?!And how many times have you secretly wished that a lecturer would fall ill or something so that you could have a class off? I have probably done it all through the four years of my engineering. But alongside, i have also looked forward to meeting up with friends in college, catching up on the latest college gossip, the bunking and going loafing. It is as if, there are two separate worlds inside those college gates- one, outside the classroom and one inside!

Well, yesterday was the last day that i got to spend in the class, during the photo session. Amidst taking pictures and signing autographs, we also made sure we left our mark in the class. The beam in the center of our classroom, all brightly whitewashed, now sports a message-"8th CS-A 05-09 was here", just like the one in Shawshank Redemption.

I had always imagined that i would be all teary eyed and sappy on the last day. However, it was not to be, what with all the PJs being cracked and the smiling for the pictures. I was extra happy since we had wrapped up the project only the previous day!
With the project also over, it is as if there is nothing more to do for now!( i have blocked out exam preparation entirely out of my mind, as of now) It all just adds up to the empty feeling that i have when i wake up these days( of course, half the empty feeling is because Sony Max has some bad movie playing at 8 since monday)! To top it, there are neighbors who see me at home all the time and keep asking me-" college ilva?", "college mugitha?". Howdu! College mugithu. And i am not exhilarated about it. The four years seem to have passed in a jiffy and have left me wanting more! And in a matter of a few days, the exams will also be over and it will be THE end of my college life! I am going to miss all my friends, the juice center,the steps, the parking lot, the placement cell and all the fun i have had in college. One big regret is that i can't seem to recollect which was the last class that i bunked :(. After all, i won't get to do it anymore!!