College Grades Are Of No Use. *sigh*

Proof: It is a fallacy because you start with a normal distribution in the first year, and because the failing students are removed from the tail, the shape of the distribution in the second year isn’t normal anymore. In particular the variance is reduced. Using a normal distribution to score tests year after year artificially increases the variance by multiplying what is essentially noise. This mechanism ensures that the final rankings at the end of college are essentially meaningless.


I found this statement in a comment on THIS article. 


The question is:
What is the point of my 3.7 GPA in my last trimester now? :(

An Intellectual Justification of Irrational Food Consumption.

"I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored. But then it occurred to me that musing is a pointless waste of anyone's time, and instead I went off to see if I could find a Baby Ruth candy bar, a far more profitable exercise."
Bill Bryson


Truer words were never spoken, in my opinion. 
If I have put on summer weight just by lounging around at home and eating food that is absolutely delish, kill me for it and I shall not care.
:)


On a minor sidenote, it's amusing how people quote other people by quoting them from Wikipedia. :D

I Spy :The Elevator Edition

How many times have I traveled by an elevator? Uh, somewhere in the range of a million? I currently reside on the 12th floor, so there's that, then college and malls and airports, the list is long, and honestly, dull.  But that does not stop me, (does anything? :P) from making a few observations on that, on average, 35 second lift ride up or down.

 You might not even know the name of the person standing ten inches from you, (quite the friendly neighbor, I am) but still: You know what he's reading;  his cologne(or its lack thereof) ;  his taste in music coz of course his iPod's volume is turned up high enough that your eardrums are revolting : his cell-phone's ringtone and why will it be anything but 'Tera tera tera suroooooor" and you will surely guess that he's had aloo parathas with spicy chutney for lunch. Whoever first called India the land of spices said it from 'stuck with an Indian in a closed space' experience! 

All at once, it's weird yet completely normal. Here we are, two complete strangers stuck in a closed box for less than a minute and yet we part knowing more random details about each other than many in our friend circle. To think, this is when we haven't even exchanged a single word. 

Move to "Hello" time. The inevitable(not always, ironically!) conversation starter.
The sharp divide between Introverts and Extroverts is a lie. So is the divide between 'tomayto' and 'tomahto', the Montagues and the Capulets, the bibliophiles and the comic book readers. All the people in the world can broadly be divided into two kinds of people- People who chit-chat in an elevator,  and those who don't.

You know the drill if you're in the latter group.  Aimlessly play around with your cell-phone, check your hair if there are mirrors around etc etc. Aaah, the silence does carry the acute weight of discomfort and just waiting to get the hell out! Neutered of even basic conversational skills that I am, the elevator ride just makes me feel the sheer inadequacy of these silly social skills. And, if you fall squarely in group 1, then you absolutely have to make eye contact, fake- smile and nod a silent hello, and wait for Aunty to ask, "How is college?" or "Where is Mumma these days?" before you ask, "Aunty, I haven't seen Pappu in the longest time!" or "Thanks for the lasagna you sent over, it was yummy!"

And oh, how can I even forget the drone of Kenny G elevator music .3 times a day, aaaaaaaargh, I've had enough!

Is it time to get all "I'm going to be a health freak" and take the stairs?

Yeah, we'll see how that goes. :P

P.S. In India, an elevator is called a lift. In case you're not from the country and are wondering why people are waiting for a car to give you a ride while waiting in the line for the elevator. :P

Murphy's Laws for poor little management students.

1. If the timetable says college starts at 10 and the first lecture is Politics, then it REALLY starts at 11.30 or never starts at all.  'Absent minded professor' is not another empty obsolete stereotype,mind you.
On the other hand, if the first lecture is Maths, class starts at 9.45 and yes, you're late if you stroll in at ten and won't be given attendance.

2. No class ever starts on time unless you are running late and really need the delay to make it to the classroom.

3.The floor in between the 3rd and the 4th floor, the mysterious P floor, is the scary haunted area that featured prominently in your nightmares. Scientists are working day and night trying to figure out why it exists. CERN came into existence to figure out the mystery behind the floor named P.

4. You will inevitably be squished and squashed in the lift, after waiting for half an hour in the company of wet socks and stinking armpits. But the college has it all figured out. They play Kenny G in the lift to relax you once you get in, and are struggling to breathe.

5. The Georgia tea on the 5th and 7th floor is the best thing in the world.

6. If you want to go bankrupt in a week, eat only and only from the college's very own canteen cutely named Aditi. Items start at Rs.20 and go upto Rs.70. Do the smart thing and make the rich dumb-asses who carry their Apple Mac laptops in the rain everyday to pay.


7.It is possible to pass your midterms by studying for exactly half a minute.
(Says the girl who studied Maths for 2 whole hours the day before, and then wrote 48*3=72 in the paper.)


8. Know the meaning of the word 'twain' to score well in your Effective Communication exam.


9.Don't get me started on the teachers.


10. Next time you hear they finally have a practical approach to studies in India, and the college provides a lot of industry exposure to students etc... Don't believe it. India is rote-learners paradise. That's what makes India, India after all.


"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong".


All hail Murphy.

10 things a 17 year old girl should know/be able to do.

I'm on Chapter 3 of Norwegian Wood, and there's this great quote here. 

"Only the dead stay seventeen forever', Toru Watanabe says.

And that got me thinking about...Things I should know how to do, theoretically.

1. Know how to cook. I'm not talking your basic omelettes and Maggi, but the whole deal. Atleast 8 varieties of dal AND rice, how to make chapatis (without screaming at the top of your lungs that a roti-maker now exists), and an assortment of side dishes ranging from potatoes to bitter gourd. 

If I don't know how to cook, I am automatically

-A spoilt brat

-Ineligible for marriage

-Irresponsible, and possibly rebellious.

Explanation-I am an Indian. :P

How do I measure up? I'm petrified of turning the gas knob. :(

2. Shake hands firmly.

Girls often have that really limp handshake, probably coz of their incurable neurosis or shyness. (Look left.)

 Then there's that stalker handshake, where they take your hand and don't let go for an inordinately long time.

It's simple, really. Stick out your hand and imagine yourself grabbing a Coke bottle. One-Mississippi-Two-Mississipi. Done.

3. Know the valency and electronic configuration of Beryllium. 

It may just help you someday. :P

4. Read a self-help book or a women's magazine without thinking you need to change one single thing about yourself.

5. Value chivalry when you are at the receiving end of it.

Women are independent and chivalry isn't dead, it just isn't required as much anymore. BUT..

As an answer to the domestic slavery and abuse of bygone eras, women now have this I-aint-need-no-help-from-a-man attitude. So when the poor gentleman actually does pull out a chair for you, you start ranting a feminist speech. 

Stop it. 

There aren't that many gentlemen left in the world anyway.

6. Know that the Twilight series is NOT, and I repeat, NOT literature.

AND

7. Having a crush on a guy who plays a white-faced vampire with crazy hair(read Robert Pattinson) does NOT make you cool or a person with anything resembling good taste.

8. Know how to drive.

It's time to break the above stereotype.The dark ages are upon us. Auto fares have increased. BEST buses are brimming with dirty sweaty armpits.

And Mumbai traffic is well,... It renders me speechless.

I'm going to start learning early next year. Maybe I'll just practice until then!

9. Know directions. 

You should be able to tell a stranger the precise directions to reach Point B from Point A, without messing up right from left, 'go straight' from 'take a left at the crossing, then another left and another left and yet another left'.

10. Know how to detect when people are talking nonsense, no matter how fluent or intelligent it all sounds at face value. Next time someone tells you they have a "ground breaking" proposal for you, or says something like "Our dynamic flow capacity matrix has unprecedented downtime resistance protocols"... 

Please take the time out to smell the bullshit.

Green tea break now.

Later. :)

This and That.

Hello,hello.

My blog misses me, I know. And so, I've decided to make a compilation of a few completely random things.

(Which reminds me, how we were all supposed to solve this Effective Communication worksheet in college a couple of days ago, and i just couldn't find a synonym for the word 'random'! Confession: I then Googled it secretly and quickly scribbled down the word 'arbitary'.)

1.METER JAM tomorrow!

This is a strike by the average Mumbai commuter against tampered auto rickshaw meters, arrogant drivers who aggravatingly refuse to drop us to our intended destination, and then have the audacity to overcharge!

The question is-How will I travel to college tomorrow morning, then? :P

2. How many books are there in the world? (No, that is not a rhetorical question to make me seem all bookish smart, there really is an answer now!)

129,864,880 . I'm not sure how accurate it is, but in Google I blindly trust.

Cool, right? :D

3.Fact of the day(if the above was not enough!)-

   "The basic marriage rule in Hindu society is that no individual is permitted to marry outside the sub-caste or jati. Social mobility will be severely restricted by this rule because individuals are forced to match within a very narrow pool. Social mobility, as measured by inter-caste marriage, continues to be low in rural India despite the economic changes within and across castes that have taken place over the past decades. Recent surveys in rural and urban India that the authors have conducted indicate that among 25-40 year olds, out-marriage was 7.6% in Mumbai in 2001, 6.2% in South Indian tea plantations in 2003, and 5.8% for the rural Indian population in 16 major states of India in 1999."

Pathetic, or more pathetic? :-/

4. More on marriage...

"Incense is lit at Taoist temple in Taipei

Incense is lit at a Taoist temple in Taipei. A Taiwanese man out of luck in earthly love has married a goddess after she ordered him to do so in a dream, a report has said."

How I love the crazies of this planet! :P

5. I study in NMIMS. It's almost a month since I first stepped into this college.

It's a place where the faculty is mostly great, the attendance is super strict and the crowd.. Oh my god, the crowd.

If it wasn't for the fact that I was actually sitting in that classroom experiencing the sheer Gujju-ness or wannabe-ishness or I-post-a-video-of-someone-sharpening-a-pencil-in-class-on-Facebook-I'm-so-cool, I would think someone is playing a nasty prank on me. I stir from my daydream to see people play Justin Beiber during the five minute break between lectures and people coming up with the lamest comments, greeted (not-to-miss) by resounding applause and laughter.

At times like these, I thank God for the few normal friends I've made in class. :)

6. Steven Wright once said that he wished the first word he spoke was “quote.” Then, right before he died he could say, “Unquote.” 

Now the world cannot possibly be THAT cool, lest the universe collapse into itself.

But here is a list of a little less awesome last words than the Wright idea, but truly great nonetheless.

Deathbed Witticisms

7. I got my hands on Norweigan Wood!!!

So, now let me go and read.

Bye bye, all. :)

To be or not to be.

The French author François de la Rochefoucauld wrote, "We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves."

This is the guy who came up with 500 reflections on human behaviour. You'd think more people would listen to what he had to say, and take him seriously!

As someone who is 17, not a kiddie, not really an adult, no one knows better what it means to live such a schizophrenic life. 

With your friends you're one person, with your parents another, with your sister you turn into a crazy monkey and at a book-club meeting the sober intellectual with spectacles falling off your nose.

So, what does it mean to be yourself? To be consistent in your behaviour and body language?

I don't see it that way, but most do.

To me, being yourself is being consistent in your basic ideologies and thought processes at all times. 

For example, do you believe in the necessity of violence? No, you say? If that's your answer in any given situation, you're being yourself. On the other hand, if you decide to tell your parents, "No, no, I hate war. Violence only provides temporary relief from hopelessness, and can never be a permanent answer," and tell your friends "War, from time to time refreshes the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and of patriots. War gives otherwise broken down old men something important to reminisce on. War is good."

.... That is being a little spineless and hypocritical in my books. 

What are your real opinions? (Do you even have any? :P)

I don't see how your behaviour with every single person in your life has much to do with "being yourself". 

You relate to every single person in a different manner, don't you? You can't possibly treat every single person in your life as cattle trains. Laugh at every joke every person in your life cracks, scream at one as mindlessly as you can at the other. They're all different, they all deserve a relatively unique place in your life. 

So, it's okay to be one person with your friend, and another with your parents.

That's what I believe to be correct. Theoretically, at least, it sounds okay to me.

The question is.

Does that not make you a little schizophrenic in the end? A little confused about who you really are? A tiny bit disillusioned with people, expectations, morality?

When and how do we come to terms with who we really are at the core?

Nietzsche wrote, "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe."

To Friends.

At the very outset, Happy Friendship Day to whoever is reading this right now!

I may know you very well, or not at all, but at this moment you're reading something written by me rather than doing the million other things you could have been doing instead. 

And that matters to tiny, baby faced me. So,before I write any further, here's a big hug. :)

Yaaaaay,it is the first of August. 213th day of the year.

The one day of the year many gladly fall prey to the enormously successful marketing strategy of Archies and Hallmark, spending mindlessly on colorful friendship bands and cute little photo-frames. And admittedly

,till 4 years back, I was an avid buyer of all of the below. :P

(These are Archies bestselling items,by the way. I took this picture of their website!)

Today is also the day you are bound to receive countless SMSes on your cell-phone that go something like this.

"If CARE is a WAVE,
i give u SEA.
If RESPECT is a LEAF,
i give u TREE.
If TRUST is a PLANET,
i give u GALAXY,
if FRIENDSHIP is LIFE,
i give u MINE 4 FREE..
keep smiling.my dearest frnd."

Do you feel like smiling with gratitude or throwing up at the cheesiness of that? :P

But today, I think of all my friends.

The girl with whom I played with Barbie dolls in first grade in Coimbatore.

The guy who introduced me to Backstreet Boys in sixth grade.

The girl who I sat with on a scary ride at Essel World for the first time, and who hugged me even as I screamed at her.

The guy who calls me Bundo and messes up my hair all the time.

The girl I've had the most horrible fights with and laughed about them all later.

The guy who gave me 2 music CDs as a farewell gift when I left Calcutta.

The girl who I bunked school with to watch a Himesh Reshamiya movie, "first day first show" just for the kicks. 

The guy who gets drenched in the rain to get me a Dairymilk when I'm not feeling so good.

Tangled up in Blue, Srishti, Sankoobaba, Einstein and others- People I've never met, but have become close companions on my blogging journey.

And I thank all of them.

Just for having been a part of my life, exactly the way they have. :)

"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade."

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3.


I'd like to take that chance to be friends with the "new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade" today.
In case, I don't know you, here, I repost an old blogpost I'd written for you. :)
http://contradictoryexistence.blogspot.com/2010/06/to-stranger.html

Marim-blah.

Okay, (un)fortunately(?), I'm back from my blogging hiatus.

And yes, I shall offer the lame excuse of the internet cord having snapped into two last week. Don't even get me started on that. :/

Last night, the seniors organised a fresher's party for us BBA babies. At a club. A certain club/lounge/dark room filled with sweaty drunken people named Marimba.

Now, before I elaborate on that, keep this in mind. I'm 17. By all conventions, I should be going through some sort of teenage rebellion phase. This is the age I should be dying to try out funky tattoos, black nail-polish, hair streaked electric blue, navel piercings, partying till 4 a.m.,cigarettes, alcohol, drugs etcetera etcetera before rejecting it in 4 years thinking, "Man, those years were wild. But I am a sensible adult now, time to get my act together."

Reality check. I'm experiencing nothing of the sort. I am not even kidding you. Not even a little bit. I think it's stupid. And right as I might be, I feel a little out of place with others my age who are reveling in their new-found freedom, however drug or alcohol induced it might be.

Take last night for example. 

Of course, I was really super-duper excited about the Freshers. Point no. 1 (and probably the only point),it was in a club. I had never been to one. And everyone I know seems to love it, so I figured of course, I'll like it too.
Well, that didn't happen.

Here are my not-so-nice observations on clubs.

1. Clubs are like concerts without that awesome stage act you've been waiting for. So it's dark, crowded, immensely sweaty and reeking of booze. For what? The heck of it.

Soooo cool.

2.You don't talk. Not because you don't want to, but for the simple reason that you can't. it's so abnormally and irritatingly loud. Just dance, drink, drink,  dance. But it gets so crowded, all you can do is rock back and forth before some girl digs her stiletto into your innocent foot. The whole point of the freshers party is to interact with people you've barely known for a week, not watch them puke on the dance floor.

3.If you're wondering whether non-verbal communication is possible, long story short, it's not. Clubs are dark. They're laden with fog machines. Jarring disco lights are sporadically swerving on and off your face. IRRITATING. :/

4.Almost everyone is fake in there. Fake nice. Fake I'm-so-cool-I-have-my-shirt-collar-turned-up. Fake Woah-I'm-having-such-a-fabulous-time. 

Yes, I'm sure that's a pretty lopsided view of the whole affair considering it's based on just a one-time experience. 

So let me now think of clubs as the silver-lining girl I'm purported to be. :P

You get to see people all dressed up and do something more glitzy than they do in real life.

I guess it may be a great way to blow off steam for some. No one's obligated to do something meaningful and productive and profound 100% of their time. Clubs provide mindless fun to a whole bunch of people. 

And I'm sure people don't go to clubs with any expectation of having a half-decent conversation anyway.

But one thing is for sure.

It's not my cup of tea/coffee/ fresh lime soda.

I got out of there in a little over 40 minutes. Yeah, really. :P

P.S. I take this opportunity to thank Kshitij, my best friend, who made the entire club experience something to laugh about and not a crying over- experience.
Also, 4 days too late on this forum, but here's your very public birthday greeting- Happpppppppy Birthday! :)

Going retro.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, I have a brand new bookshelf!

And my room is being retro-ed up!! I get to share my living space with Elvis, the Beatles, Eddie Vedder, Simon and Garfunkel soon.

I'm super excited. I'll probably put up some pictures soon. :)

Incoherence.

Your Blog Should Be Orange

Your writing has a star quality - it's charming, bold, and flamboyant.
You write what's on your mind, without fear of embarrassment later.
You are one of the most honest bloggers around, and people appreciate your daring persona.

     
Yes, I took a random quiz AGAIN on this site "blogthings.com".
Sad, I know.

On the bright side, I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. FINALLY! The story is too long and complicated for me to write a book review and do justice to it, so don't expect one. All I'll say is that dysfunctional, anorexic, under 5 feet Lisbeth Salander is the most original, intriguing and might I add, the coolest female protagonist in decades!!!

Aaaaaand, I got a new phone. A Nokia E72! :) :) :)
Shit, shit, no more smileys.
But as one of my abnormally tall friends reminded me, "No smileys here, you are a big girl.":P

And this is completely random.
But I've been thinking about it for almost a week now. There isn't a word for "being smiled at". (Is there?) Atleast I haven't found it.
I think there should be, don't you? :)

Btw, I was thinking about the state of Indian advertisements today. I have one word for them. Rubbish.
Neither do they get the shadow of their point across, nor do they make even the slightest sense. At the end of the ad you're left wondering why you didn't go blind and deaf before that torture was inflicted upon you! Like the one where chimpanzees are jumping around in bright red underwear and then the tagline is "Yeh toh bada toing hai". What the hell is THAT all about?
To think so many of these people are IIM graduates. :/
I remember reading this Ayn Rand quote somewhere once, "Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason."
They should chew on that for a while.

Did you know that Albert Einstein was offered the Israeli presidency and he turned it down?
Or that the first recorded account of plastic surgery is in ancient Indian texts?

THIS is what I write about when I feel I am running out of blog ideas. I refuse to put my name at the end of a blank blog post, and I refuse to go on a writing sabbatical as well.

If you have got to the end of this blog post, please suggest ideas on what to gift someone on their 18th birthday! :P

Word out. :D

10 things I love.

1.Mentally stimulating conversation, peppered with wit and humour.

2.Those 2 year old jeans I refuse to give up coz they fit so right. Levis rules! :)

3.Hershey's Dark Chocolate.
  Lindt dark chocolate is a close runner up, along with Bournville.

4.Twinings' Green tea with lemon. I love the delicate taste of it. And it has all these antioxidants which will keep me looking young. I'm 17, so of course I'm worried about wrinkles. :D

5. Black and white photographs. I'm just fascinated by black and white anything, photographs, paintings, album covers, zebras, you name it!

6. I absolutely love nice inscriptions on the first pages of a book. Inscriptions are always a nice gesture.:)

7. I watched the Woody Allen classic, Annie Hall today and fell in love with it, head over heels. La-dee-dah!
"Love is too weak a word for what I feel - I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes I have to invent, of course I - I do, don't you think I do?"

8. The prospect of the world ending in 2012. Haha, really. Be it coz of some defect in the CERN particle accelerator, the Chinese Book of Changes predictions coming true or the Yellowstone volcano blowing up. That gives me just one and a half more years of life. To laugh or not to laugh at the minuscule possibilities of the above. :P

9.A mug of freshly brewed, properly ground and properly brewed coffee and I have attained nirvana.

10. A book that doesn't lose its way. That keeps me hooked beginning, middle and end. A book that doesn't make me want to keep it down, even for a second. A book that makes me ignore my mom's tenth call to eat dinner. That kinda book.

The Four Letter word.

Be honest, and stop being so uptight.
We all use it, don't we? Maybe not everyday, but maybe once in a week. If you're a little shy, once in a month probably! You say it to a friend, girlfriend/boyfriend, sister/brother, colleague, domestic help, even your plumber sometimes.
So c'mon, admit that you say it. Or at least think of it in your mind, coz saying it out loud may lead to somewhat awkward social situations occasionally. You might offend the person you say it to in some way. You might just ruin the friendship you had.

I just found out that the word goes back to the very roots of the English language. In fact. it's been recorded in writings as early as 8th century B.C. The meaning of the word changes not only from person to person, but from century to century. The word is now part of our daily dictionary, when earlier saying it out loud, would be like a game of hide-and-go-seek!
So, no one can really fault you for its having found its way into your vocabulary.

**** you, my 12 followers!
Insulted?
Why? I was talking of the word LOVE all along!
What were you thinking? :P

Now let me go enjoy my butter chicken!
Have a great weekend. :)

6 things WAY more interesting than Indian television.

Some days are different. Some days are not.
Today, falls squarely into the second category.
You know the drill. Waking up at 9.30 a.m. and cribbing about being woken up too early, being a little late for a haircut appointment, sleeping, reading, SMS-ing, blog-surfing and then for lack of anything else left on the planet to do(except toilet-cleaning, of course), turning on the television.

Be it K-serials with villainous mothers-in-law plotting against their lamb-like daughters-in-law OR one of the ten million reality shows OR the music channels playing the same songs at periodic 30 minute intervals OR the sensationalist news channels, Indian television shows remind me instantly of that Roald Dahl poem (not-so-subtly) titled Television,
"IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!"



So here are 6 things I've found waaaaaaaaaay better than daring to watch TV here.
Why *only* 6, you ask? My lucky number? My birthdate? One-third the number of the devil?
All of the above, if you ask me.

Soooo, here goes.

1.Print this on a t-shirt and wear it all the time.

2.Read the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, one of the wittiest serious novels I've read on one of the most perverse subjects EVER. Wait, does that make me a pervert or an unbiased reader? Please please please, the latter.

3. Buy an acre of land on the Moon. Or Mars, for men, Venus, for women, if you want to stick to gender stereotypes created by an over-rated book Yes, you can really have property in The Sea of Tranquility! Completely useless, but so awesome, right? :)

4.See if what's written in your daily horoscope actually matches what's happening in your life today. Here's what mine says.

"June 30, 2010

Someone this morning may take up more of your time than you had hoped. The needs of someone special are strongly focused in your chart. It will be a very social evening."

Yeah, moving on. :/

5. Figure out all by yourself who REALLY has the "poker face". Lady Gaga, the world-famous pop singer or Annie Duke, the best female poker player in the world. See for yourself.

 6.  Try figuring out what to get your best friend for his 18th birthday. 

Buy an electric guitar? Too broke.

Buy a rare band t-shirt? Still as broke.

Buy the band itself? Just too broke for that.

Right now, I have just enough money to buy this.

Aaaaah, pathetic.

Guess I'll just go back to watching C.I.D Classics now, "12 years of Glory" not to miss.

Later. :)