The aglet

Do you know how many times I’ve used the word ‘I’ in this blog? And how many entries revolve solely around my limited world of perception and thought?
Yeah, you’re right. Not nearly enough.

Okay, jokes apart (yes! that was a joke. Ha ha to you too) I do tend to talk a lot about things that can be of no interest to anyone, except maybe the few people who read it as a personal favour to me and to avoid a Fate Worse Than Death.

I thought to myself, how can I remedy this? Can I move beyond the narrow walls that confine me and expand myself into a larger world which involves more important things in life, like the little plastic thing at the end of your shoelaces?
Yes, I know it’s called an aglet, thank you.

And I just used the word ‘I’ way too many times in this entry.
Alright, this is a small ode to the aglet where no ‘I’ shall rear its ugly, inflated ‘I’ head.

Oh aglet, thou art more beautiful than...er, sorry.
The aglet’s a useful little plastic or metal thing at the end of shoe laces or drawstrings originally invented by the dude who couldn't get the lace through the tiny holes in his shoes. No one knows if he patented it, but it is a general opinion that if he had done it, he would now be earning a ridiculous amount of money and living on a private island off the South Pacific coast, wasting the ready on pink champagne and ridiculously high security.

The history of the aglet is very interesting but sadly, no one knows exactly how the idea was hit upon. Did someone wrap sellotape on the ends of their ragged and filthy shoelaces to keep their shoes together or was it the result of many sleepless nights and hard work..? It is possible that we may never know.
Some things are better left a mystery.

I knew it. I can totally move beyond the narrow walls that confine me into a larger world involving aglets. Wizard.

Life is a delicate negotiation

Third year has it perks. For one thing, we have this cool dude teaching us data mining and data warehousing. Let me tell you this up front, this entry has nothing to do with data mining and warehousing. This is basically because I don’t really know what it’s all about yet and also because the professor is a funny guy whose jokes are more interesting than his lectures.

Apart from the usual snubs he delivers indiscriminately to all who attempt to finish their math assignments in his class, he also accepts snubs gracefully from the class with nothing more than a ‘you people should act your age.’ That’s pretty mild actually. Any other member of the illustrious staff would have had an aneurysm and turned homicidal if we’d made a reference to their bald spot and/or spewed corny lines from Tamil movies and giggled at it every five minutes to annoy them.


I’m also apparently a part of the college choir. The best thing about this is that I get to bunk a lot of boring classes. The bad thing is that it gets really irritating when Some People (I name no names) who can sing louder than others and use terms like pitch and notes, boss around those who can’t.

Imagine this: a bunch of girls get together and have hush-hush conversations about which note they should start the song on, (It’s just We Three Kings, for heaven’s sake, not the opera) so that everyone else will suck less.

On one hand, I’m glad someone else is in charge of the whole thing and taking the flak from higher authorities on our suckiness as a choir. On the other hand, sitting and listening to them bickering and listening to them telling us to be a ‘Little Louder, People!’ and being rude to the not-so-popular is not my idea of fun. And strangely, no one seems to like it when I start humming ‘God rest ye merry gentlemen’ at odd moments to relieve the boredom and introduce a more festive spirit. Sad.



On account of the whole bunking-class thing, I now have a load of work piling up slowly but steadily. However, quoting from the movie The Dog Problem (Yes, I love Solo’s little dog just like everyone else), life is a delicate negotiation. So I suppose I should spend more time on Bresenham’s algorithms and less time on my blog.

Why does that depress me?

Love - part deux

As an almost twenty-year old it is impossible for me not to have any decided views on love.

I’ve gone through all the usual stages. You know, like when you’re ten you think the kissing scenes in movies are gross. At age thirteen, you’re guiltily interested in the kissing scenes and your older sister’s weepy romance novels don’t make you want to gag but you will die before you admit it. By fifteen, you probably have at least one unrequited love story involving Leonardo DiCaprio.
The rest, as they say, is history.

If you’re a guy, you have your own set of embarrassing stages involving Julia Roberts. You know what they are.

As you grow older, you also realize that this is more complicated than you bargained for. You’re exposed to different theories ranging from the plenty-of-fish-in-the-ocean theory to the one-true-love theory. You’ll also meet a lot of people who are convinced that it’s all a hoax generated by a capitalist economy to sell Valentine’s Day memorabilia and romantic comedies.

Also, it’s really a big bother.
And lame, sometimes.
Funny how no one minds all that.
Unless they’re old, cynical and bitter.
Or they’re your parents.

Sem six: Day one

Is it written somewhere in the cosmic plan of things that first days should always be crappy?

After five semesters it still amuses me that every single professor starts the class with ‘the rules and regulations of this college’. This includes:

1. The dress code. The main thing you should have in mind every morning as you get ready is that you MUST NOT attract a guy. By no chance must this ever happen or you will immediately be suspended for breaking college rules.

2. There should be no complaints about your class.This is a sub clause of rule #1. Because if you attract guys, you will be complained about.

3. Don’t talk in class. And don’t talk to guys. Ever.
(Yeah sure, and while we’re at it, we’ll also listen to the stuff you ‘teach’ us.)

4.We own you body and soul. Resistance is futile

5.Don’t change seats to sit with your friends. This is precisely what the college wants to avoid. Friendship and love will only distract you from the very important task of mugging up your textbooks and getting a university rank for the glory of the prestigious college.

6.Cover your observation. In fact, if you’re a ‘good’ student you’d cover all your notebooks as well and treat them with the all the reverence due to a work of art. Neatness more than actual matter, will get you that university rank.


After this, we have to listen to how lucky we are to be studying in such an amazingly awesome place. I’m sorry but are these people brain dead…?
Then they’ll dictate the syllabus. Hello, if we wanted the syllabus we’d go look in something called the syllabus book. This isn’t some place we come to everyday to practice our handwriting.
And yes, the always yawn inducing ‘How to present your answer paper’ talk. I didn’t even bother with this when I was in school, why the heck would I start now?

I know the truth however. These are all merely delay tactics because they haven’t prepared for the class. And because the lot of them got blasted at the last staff meeting for not churning out more university rankers and letting girls look attractive.

From being annoyed, I’ve progressed to being amused. You can’t hear rubbish like this year after year without a) killing someone or b) smirking sarcastically at the poor deluded souls who call themselves professors and deciding to become a stand up comedian.

Interpersonal relationships

A friend of mine was mad at me for a few days before she told me why. So there were some Amazingly Fun days of cold shoulders and curt replies. I had no clue if she was just annoyed with life in general, annoyed with other people or annoyed with me. As it turned out, apparently it was all me.

In certain circumstances, it sucks being non-confrontational more than it would have sucked being confrontational. Also, it sucks being clueless. I'm highly bad at this. If you left me to my own devices I would avoid any and all confrontations in life and remain blissfully clueless about my many unforgivable transgressions.

On my end, I keep making excuses for other people because of the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing and because I really don't want to fight with them when what I should be doing is hitting them over the head for being block headed asses.

The bright side is that sometimes they tell you that you hurt them and after you apologize, they forget about it and everyone is chummy again over a cup of coffee and some biscuits without the whole mess of a fight ever happening. I love people like that.

Other times, it's like a festering sore which just keeps getting worse and worse and ends up in a lot of silent resentment and dislike. As Oscar Wilde put it,'that awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is!' Things which may seem mundane to you are kept alive through constant feelings of ill usage and hate, finally cumlinating in even the end of a friendship or a supernova-like fight of epic proportions.
That sucks.

This Christmas time...

The holiday season is here! The season of goodwill and joy and lots and lots of holidays! The weather is absolutely perfect too, as you will already know if you live in Chennai. Yes, life is worth living again.

Christmas is only a few weeks away and they're already singing carols in church, Sunday school kids are putting up Christmas plays and the Christmas tree is out. Of course, the sermons haven't changed.
'Don't concentrate on the shopping! Make Christ the center of this Christmas!'
A good sentiment. It's not about the shopping, people. It's about giving. Love, affection, time, effort, money...whatever it is, give and you will get it back one way or another. Besides, it's more fun than you realise.

Yeah, I wanted to tell you guys about the Christmas play. No matter how amateurish it is, it never fails to warm your heart when you see little kids dressed up as angels with wings, tiara et al. Probably the only time of the year when they seem angelic. Okay, okay! I'm kidding. I'm sure they have their moments.



The best part of 'The Fourth Wise Man' was the manger scene. I couldn't help stifling a laugh when the baby Jesus was peremptorily passed on to the little kid dressed up as Mary and the subsequent abandonment of the doll in the pulpit after its role was over.



It was cute. It was adorable. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Happy holidays everyone!

P.S: I know the pics are bad, so don't mind that. It was pretty dark in there and I had to mess around with it in picassa.