Now lets see.....

2009-06-14T02:57:00.000-07:00

I don't post quite often. Maybe that's why my posts are so long.

I am rediscovering life everyday. I learn new things. I push my limits. I discover new ways to bend the rules, to get where I want, to go where I please.

Thomas J Watson, Founder of IBM:

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure"

You are free. Here. Now. The only question is: To what degree do you understand that there are no rules and that you are free?
Seek to do what you want to do. Don't try to 'not do' something and suffer by attempting to push it away with your mind. Do it if you want to do it. Stop when you don't want to do it. It's that simple.
Push. Forwards or backwards, it doesn't matter. Just follow your heart and push.
My feelings determine everything. My whole existence is run by the way I feel. Does this/Will this make me happy/fulfilled?
Develop the habit of action. Replace existing habits that you find pointless/detrimental with new ones, through practice. See this article for more on that.
Treat your attributes as what they are: attributes. Not elements of your identity. Playing golf well or singing well serves its own purpose. It may be making your boss happy or landing a record deal. Learn to value those parts of you for the function they perform and solely for that.

Bruce Lee:

Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.

Living your life involves answering just one question “What do you want?”. The rest will follow.

How do I know all this? I read. A lot. And I internalize and practice what I read.

Hapkido Belt Test

2009-02-12T02:48:00.000-08:00

My path towards a black belt shortened its length a little on Saturday. Yup, I passed my test and am now the proud owner of a green belt in Hapkido. To understand what that means, you have to look at the following hierarchy:

10th Gup - White
9th Gup - White with Yellow stripe
8th Gup - Yellow
7th Gup - Green
6th Gup - Blue
5th Gup - Blue with one Red stripe
4th Gup - Blue with two Red stripes
3rd Gup - Red
2nd Gup - Red with one Black stripe
1st Gup - Red on top, Black on bottom
0th Dan - Black on top, Red on bottom
1st Dan - Black

(Gup just means 'student' in Korean and has nothing to do with its phonetic friend, Cup (Note: IITM inside joke))

That means I've been through (and passed) 3 belt tests. So yeah, I know what it's like.

For starters, the obvious question is, what do we do in a belt test? The answer is even simpler: Everything we have been taught. So, as you progress, since you know more, you have to do a lot more.

Naturally, tests get harder and longer as you pass through the ranks. To add fuel to the fire, you're expected to be a lot fitter as well. For instance, as a white belt, you would be expected to do 50 karate push-ups and 50 sit-ups in 2 minutes before starting your belt test. As a green belt, you run a bit to get your heart rate up before you do 60 push-ups and 60 sit-ups in 1.5 minutes.

I'm not really complaining. Taking up hapkido is probably the best self-made decision I've ever taken. My muscles have increased significantly in size and exponentially in hardness. I feel like a million bucks and that's ONLY because I am forced to push myself out of my comfort zone every time I enter class.

But, I digress. Let us return to the belt tests.

The first thing you have to understand is that belt tests are hard. Really hard. Halfway into my first belt test, I was utterly exhausted. i.e. My car was running with an absolutely empty tank. I actually managed to pass the test with reserves that I never knew existed. These statements are mirrored by most people who have taken a belt test here. Our instructor wants you to be on the edge of your energy and sanity.

But why, you ask? A belt is meant to be a measure of the amount of practice you have put in. It is only when we are utterly exhausted that our body does what we have conditioned it to do, through repeated practice. Your brain switches off completely. No matter how much you try to pretend that you know what you're doing, if you really don't, it WILL show. Why is this important? Because your opponent will want to fight you when your balance is off, when you're tired and hurt, and when the last thing you want to do is fight. And your body should be capable of handling anything that is thrown at you.

Our hapkido classes are divided into sections. We do two sections a class, and we are tested on all of them on D-day. They are:

Kicks - No explanation necessary :). Linear, circular, crazy, they're all there.

Strikes - Palm, fist, elbow, your hands are at work here.

Locks - Joint locks. Wrists, shoulders, elbows, ..

Defense - Practical applications of the rest of the sections.

Basics - The ground work needed to do everything else, like turns, stances, movements, ..

Falls, Rolls, Throws - The Judo part of Hapkido. We 'borrow' stuff from everywhere.

Weapons - We start off with nunchaks, go on to sticks, knives and maybe even swords(?).

Additionally, we are also expected to break 'tiles' during the test. This pic of me breaking one shows you what I mean by 'tile'.

A bit hard for newbies, but you get used to it. One set of tiles for strikes, and another set for kicks. What you use to break them is left to the instructor's discretion :).

(All these pics are from the belt test prior to the latest one. Those pics aren't out yet. Blame Masatran, our official photographer)

The whole process lasts for about 5 hrs, usually from 9 am - 2 pm. It concludes with the giving of belts, and a group lunch at Tiffany's, the institute's restaurant.

From what I've heard, a lot of dojos just ask you to spar a bit before giving you your belt. Now, I may be biased towards my art, but I still think that's absurd. You could be a great fighter with a handful of techniques, but you could never teach your martial art to anyone else. I'm very happy that my instructor is unlike all those chaps, and does his job so darn well. You could learn any art you pleased and become a great fighter, but without a good instructor you are totally lost.

I really really want to go to Georgia Tech and learn Hapkido at my master's dojang. Now, if only my CGPA was better....

(For insti junta: If you're really keen on seeing what a belt test looks like first-hand, videos of the last belt test are shared at 10.94.26.12. So, if you use Linux, use Samba and see what the chap has, and if you use Windows, in the 'Run' dialog box, type "\\10.94.26.12")

I have a theory.

2009-01-30T08:04:00.000-08:00

It is this:

"Your success as a person is defined by your ability to do what should be done".

(The term 'what' includes the concepts of where, when et.al.)

To do what you should be doing, you have to go through the following stages:

1) Understand where you stand, in life, as a person.

2) Understand where you'd like to be, and how strong that desire is.

3) Understand what you need to do to get there, and what exactly it involves doing.

4) Weigh the costs and benefits of change. If the costs exceed the benefits, but you're still not where you want to be, either,
• Change your method of attaining your goal, or
• Change your goals

5) Once you're all set, define what you should be doing.

6) Do it!

Now comes the interesting part.

How do I fare?

Well, steps 1 through 5 involve logical thinking, which I excel at. Step 6 involve the courage, will-power and determination to change. All of which I lack.

So yeah, I'm stuck at step 5. I know what I should be doing but I'm not doing it. And thus, by my own definition, I have failed as a person.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have low self-confidence. This is not a measure of my worth. It's a measure of how well I've succeeded at life. And I know for a fact that I am surrounded by failures, so there's no lack of company.

But that doesn't mean that I like it. Not one little bit.

Ask yourself honestly, have you succeeded? Do you sleep content, with no regrets about how you performed on that day? I can safely bet that a lot of honest people will say "No.".

So, you ask, why the dismal frame of mind?

I've been trying and failing to get past step 5 for a really long time now. But it's really really hard, with absolutely no-one to drive me. Who's going to catch me not studying? Or skipping class? Or watching movies?

I am not my own master, and I hate it.

Blogging Workshop at Saarang

2009-01-22T03:12:00.000-08:00

It has been six months since I updated my blog.

So yeah, I better have something to say :).

Why the sudden change of heart? I attended a blogging workshop at Saarang today.

For those of you who are not in the know, my college, IIT Madras, has a cultural fest (aka excuse-to-finally-gaze-upon-hot-chicks), called Saarang, at this time of year. We don't really do anything 'useful', as in, upgrade our CVs or learn new job-related skills, but it's an excellent platform to develop our social skills.

Most of us are nerds who dream that all women are shy virgins and that our dream girls will experience love-at-first-sight when they look at us, so yeah, it serves as a reality check. And no, I did not make that up, that's what the guy next door thinks. Really.

And yes, I went to a workshop on online networking at an event designed to increase my interaction with real people.

Ouch. Geekiness can really hurt sometimes.

So, back to the blogging workshop. We were all asked to bring laptops, and assemble at 9:50 am sharp, so that we could begin at 10 am sharp. We never used the laptops (I never brought one, so yay for me) and we started at 10.30 am because they couldn't get the projector to work (our IST = Institute Standard Time. InsST = IndST + x, where x can vary from half an hour to forever)

There were two speakers present at the workshop: Krish Ashok and Kiruba Shankar. Krish spoke first,... and last,... and in between too. Which means that he spoke first and then interjected occasionally while Kiruba made his speech, before joining him onstage so that they could conclude together.

They were both very captivating speakers, had a lot of charisma and absolutely no inhibitions. To illustrate:

Kiruba: (Walks up to stage after Krish is done) How many of you are from the insti?
Audience: (Lots of hands in the air)
Kiruba: F**k!

See what I mean?

Now I'm going to summarize whatever they said. I bulleted everything, 'cause that's how I usually write.

And here are Krish's slides. You can verify that they follow my notes and not the other way around:

Blogging Workshop Saarang

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: iitm workshop)

• A blog is usually a personal diary, a reflection of who you are. It can also be technical, or career-related.

• Why a blog? Making a loud statement generates a reaction. You’d like to know what other people think.

• What Krish writes about: “Nothing in particular, everything in general and mostly about nonsense”

• Don’t worry too much about saying something meaningful. No matter what you write, people will always find meaning it or interpret it in a whole new way. It’s like modern art.

• Krish has no niche audience. Quite a few of them are Madrasis/Tam, but that’s about all that can be said.

• How do you increase traffic?
o Have something to say (This is actually optional)
o Initiate mutual back-scratching processes with other bloggers

• When you have an opinion, the trolls WILL come. They are a part of the scheme of things.

• Trolls refresh your blog repeatedly to see if someone disagreed with their designed-to-provoke statements

• Your blog’s audience will influence you. Deal with it.

• You will become addicted to stats. Web traffic will haunt you.

• Don’t write any sort of bulls**t on your blog. Your audience is always smart enough to notice it.

• Don’t take your blog seriously, but be passionate about it (Passionate Non-Seriousness is a unregistered trademark of Krish Ashok’s. Feel free to use it wherever you please)

• Be visual, aural (he Rick-Rolled us here), artistic, mathematic. Be Web 2.0.

(Enter Kiruba, exit Krish to a front-row seat. Krish returns from time to time, so just treat the rest of the stuff as a mix of their ‘advice’)

• Blogs can have an enormous impact
o Kiruba narrates a story of how a blog denouncing Club Mahindra cost it crores in revenue
o Narrates another story of how corporate arm-twisting cost a man his job, after he blogged about IIPM, cribbing that its degrees were not recognized in India.

• It increases visibility and pseudo-importance. In insti terms, it is a potential equivalent to a Secretarial position; It increases employability. Krish believes that the day your Google footprint supplants your resume in importance is soon coming.

• Features of a good blog:
o Does the reader feel it was worth it?
Even if you’re expressing your opinion on something, or narrating something mundane, the reader should be able to identify with what you have to say.
o You can leave it open for the final say or be strongly opinionated. You will generate reactions anyway.
o Maintain a regular writing pattern. Update regularly. Ideally, daily.
o Respect your readers. They’ve taken the time to come to your blog. Not updating it when you should means that you’re turning them away.
o Don’t spend too much time thinking about what you want to say, just say it!
o If you’re waiting for something to happen, or generally jobless, get out a pen and paper and make quick notes. They’re very useful when you’re stuck for ideas.
o Pictures are important. Take a lot of pictures, use a lot of pictures.
o A great blog is a good combination of video, audio, pictures and text.

• If you’re aiming for a niche segment, you can try collaborating with/contacting experts in that field.

• Traffic should not become an end in itself. You can always generate vague traffic from people who will merely glance at your blog.

• Never say that you don’t have the time to blog. We all waste loads of time. If you don’t have enough time, just look for it.

• Get your own domain name
o It shows that you’re serious about your blog
o You can have an email id that says me@mywebsite.com and subtly promote your blog

• If you’re really stuck for visitors, you could always blackmail your friends and family :)

• Group blogs are a good idea too. They can serve as stepping stones to the creation of your own blog.

• Give Twitter a shot. It may just be the ‘next big thing’.

• Online success stories:
o Dr. A. K. Venkat is another career blogger. He offered his patients lower service charges in exchange for videotaping everything he did, and blogging about it. All his videos are up on Youtube.
o Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails went with the flow and gave away albums for free, using BitTorrent and Direct Downloads, while simultaneously selling ‘higher quality’/’more exclusive material’. Guess what? They made loadsa cash.

• There are 'unethical' ways to get traffic by using someone else's content (Does this post count? :) ). It's up to you to use/refuse them. If you’re worried about copyright issues, you can try Copyscape.

• Legally speaking, everything on your blog belongs to….. you. And that includes the comments.

• Use Audacity. It’s a sound editor. A mike and a webcam/camcorder are all you need to make all the media you want.

• Good Blogs: Indexed, Maami’s Blog, Baby Vaijayanti and Puppy Manohar, Bikerdude’s Blog

• Making money from blogging:
o Be an expert on something
o Ads don’t make you much money
o Link farming, Link Jacking don’t really work. Google will get wise to them someday.
o Never blog with money as your motivation. It will not work out.

• Page design is not really a big deal, unless your work itself is in design. Content always rules. Design only plays a role at a much higher level. That does not mean you should shirk on designing, even if it’s just with inbuilt themes.

• Be safe: Divorce your work from your blog. Your employer CAN come after you.

• Tools to use to type in other languages:
o Quillpad
o Apparently, there’s a Google chat bot that can translate for you. Haven’t confirmed it myself, though.

And that sums it up (pretty well, IMO). I really did learn a lot at this workshop, and I’m looking forward to putting a lot of what I learnt into practice real soon.

My impressions of the speakers:

Krish Ashok:

Humour is what drives him. He exploits humour everywhere. In his slides, when he’s talking, in his body language,… He struck me as being pretty sharp, i.e. street-smart, cultured and intelligent. Overall, I did like him.

(Krish, if you’re reading this, I don’t like your hairstyle. And that french beard is so cliché :P)

Kiruba Shankar:

Hmm. Certainly an ‘odd’ chap, where odd is the set of people I’m not used to meeting/dealing with. He came across as a successful entrepreneur, who’s managed to turn blogging to his advantage. I really don’t fancy his blog much, though. His articles are pretty everyday, and his English could use a bit of work. Still a nice chap. Like I said, he’s ‘odd’ :).

(Kiruba, no offence whatsoever. No, really.)

Caramelldansen

2008-07-30T20:29:00.000-07:00

Um... yeah. That video wasn't done with a blue screen. That guy really is dancing in the middle of several crowded streets. And he's doing the 'caramelldans'.

*Several readers do the lack-of-comprehension-blink here*

I sympathize with you. After all, I discovered this yesterday, and I know where to look. If you knew already, I assume your grades are worse than mine, so I recommend you mug hard this sem :).

The Caramelldansen is an internet meme that started on an imageboard called 4chan. Just like it was done for the Loituma Girl, a song was overlaid on a clip from an anime. In this case, both the song (the chorus actually) and the clip were looped continuously.

Here's the original video:

They're using their hands to imitate rabbit ears ^^.

And that's it. Loads of people just went nuts over the darn thing. And posted videos while they were at it. We've even got characters from various other anime doing it. Some of the vids are really ultra cute, like this one.

PS: I tried the dance myself. It really was fun ^^;. I recommend you try it, but please don't Youtube yourself-and-your-caramelldans. Some things are best left unseen :D.

Ah, I almost forgot about the guy in the vid. His name is Danny Choo. Yes, he does all that embarassing stuff on a regular basis. You can check out his videos here. I think they're all pretty safe, but be warned, his site isn't exactly SFW . It's still good fun going through it though, he's got a lot of nice stuff to say.

A Little Bit Of..

2008-07-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

I did say I would put up more pics and here they are :D. Be warned, NSFW means none-of-the-female-sex-watching-over shoulder ;).

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o364/soredeii/Credits.jpg?t=1215523047
(From Ashita no Yoichi, a really great manga. Highly recommended)

NSFW: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1227/807855609_120b242830_o.jpg
(This pic is from Zero no Tsukaima Season 2 :D)

On a completely unrelated note, I wish to celebrate the return of Zero no Tsukaima. Season 3 is upon us!! Yaay! (Pops champagne).

A few pics, to show you what you can expect:

(Un)Fortunately the pictures are as pervy as they appear to be, so if you're missing your Y chromosome, you saw nothing. Got it?

To the rest of you, do go watch the series if you haven't done so already. If you haven't seen the previous two seasons, first do that, and then come back to get this one. Don't worry, the other two are just as fun, if not as ecchi ;).

Download link for Season 3:
http://brigade.baka-wolf.com/zero-no-tsukaima/4811-anime-download-zero-no-tsukaima-princess-no-rondo.html

Happy watching people!

Yare Yare...

2008-06-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

Found this absolutely brilliant pic on a site and felt it just HAD to be displayed in more places than one :).

What's it all about? It represents the reaction of a blogger to the news of a live-action, Hollywood, Dragon Ball (Yes, not Dragon Ball Z) movie :D.

Read the relevant post here: http://xspblog.com/2008/05/23/dragonball-the-movie/

I've got quite a few funny pics like these. Maybe I should put them all up some time ^^.

In conclusion, a very short and random post.

Hap Ki Do

2008-06-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

No, not Ai Ki Do, that Japanese art, or Jeet Kune Do, the 'art' Bruce Lee founded, it's Hap Ki Do. Yes, I know you haven't heard of it, but fear not your ignorance, for I will enlighten you.

First off, I really needed a regular-workout-mechanism & umm, you know, a RAD body. So, there were two choices available. I could go to the gym, or, I could go in for the martial arts, namely, Hap Ki Do, a Korean martial art of self-defense {taught by an IITM graduate and Aerospace Engineering professor (:o!)}.

Why Hap Ki Do? It's practically impossible to go outside the insti for class. Heck, there have been times when I've skipped meals cause I thought it was too much work cycling to the darn mess! This was the only class available in the insti, so I thought, why not? It might not be the widely-loved Karate, but all the same it was a martial art and I had always wanted to learn one.

In reality there were three choices. I could do both the gym and hapkido. I was advised to do gym by my friend, 'cause, in his opinion, martial arts was cardio, and was primarily endurance, not strength training {In other words, really well-defined, really small muscles :( }. So I decided to ask the man himself, the prof, and he told me he could deliver the same results as a gym, but over a longer period of time. I have trusted his word and joined, let us see whether my muscles blossom :).

Anyway, it has been two weeks since my first class, and we have 3 classes a week, two hrs a class, which makes my experience in hapkido = 6 classes. And I am having so much FUN!

Please note, in case my three-letter-exclamation makes you think otherwise, your muscles do hurt like hell during and after class. I still can't manage the thirty push ups and sit ups my instructor wants me to do three times a week. So, those bits are pretty frustrating, but the stuff I learn is great!

For starters, in my first class, I was taught how to stand in fighting stance, move in fighting stance, and punch from fighting stance!! And here I was thinking along the lines of 'The Karate Kid', you know, with the interminable (and seemingly pointless) 'wax on, wax off'. Ok, I admit, an exact reproduction of that situation would have sent me scurrying to the gym, but I was expecting something more like boring exercises, with techniques delivered when we were 'ready' :). The reality was nowhere near it. We were taught techniques, and we practise them till they're perfect. I do use wax on and wax off, but as part of techniques. Learning and perfecting just a part of the technique, like the Karate Kid, is pointless 'cause you can't execute the real thing anyway.

More info. Everyone knows how massively popular Karate is, don't they? Well, I learnt something interesting. My 'sir' {Sensei is a Japanese word :)} told me that when we kick, we do so making contact with the front of the ball of the foot, unlike Karate, where you strike with the upper part of the foot. In other words, my kick will have a much better chance of breaking your leg ;). He said that that's because Karate has tournaments, and competitions, and has evolved into a sport, while Hapkido has no such thing. We train for self-defense, and are as practical as possible. If you want proof, take a look at this.

I like the suits and the army jackets. Nice touch :).

Disclaimer:
That said, I have nothing against Karate, and as a n00b, I have no right to pass judgement on anything. My instructor's words should not be twisted out of context. All he has done is point out a difference in the attacking styles of two arts, and their respective reasons.

Yea, yea. What I really want to say is, SCORE! :D

And now for the icing on the cake. Do you know what weapon I was training with yesterday? It's... (Drum Roll)... a NUNCHAKU!! Yes, that Bruce Lee thing, as depicted here.

Let me tell you, swinging that thing with such precision, at that speed is really damn hard. But it is so COOL! You feel pseud just holding the darn thing in your hand. I bought one yesterday ^^.

It will take me three to four years to get a black belt, or so said my instructor, so I'm right on time. Ho ho, he he, I'm gonna have soo much fun...

Blog on!

2008-05-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have 3 months of freedom. It started on the first of May and will come to an inglorious end on the 26th of July. So what's a workaholic student (hoho), with no work, supposed to do? Find more work, of course!

For starters, I felt my English vocabulary was getting stained with vague elements of "Inna naina" and "Enta ra maga", so I felt a little bookworm-ism was in order. With this in mind, I picked up Eragon at Landmark, and will now proceed to give my review of the book.

Very LOTR-ish. The resemblances begin with the stereotypical map, flow on through the protagonist's long journeys from point A to B on horses, at breakneck speed, pursued by even faster baddies, and culminate in the overall bad guy ruling the roost, with the protagonist being the only guy who can overthrow him, and 'save us all' ;). That said, Paolini cannot compare with Tolkien. The guy is decent, but leaves a lot to be desired, especially if the last novel that you perused was 'The Return Of The King'.

For those of you who have not read LOTR, or watched the movies alone, without having read the books beforehand, and scooted, do what I did. First, read 'The Hobbit'. Next, keep your comp switched on, with the movies on it, ready to be played, and start reading 'The Fellowship Of The Ring'. Once you have ploughed through a-hundred-and-fifty pages or so, watch the first couple of minutes of the movie. If you've progressed beyond what you've read, return to the book (Don't keep watching. The way the book delivers plot points should not be spoiled by the movie). Do the same for all the three books.

I fell in love with the books and the movies. The books were so damn well written and the movies so artistically portrayed, they seemed ethereal. It has evolved to a point where I can sense what I felt while watching the movies when I listen to some of my dreamier songs.

Ah, it's nice to be alive.

First Sem at IIT M

2007-12-18T01:12:00.000-08:00

I will list and illustrate the various things I have done, during my first sem.

Dragonball Z :

Skimmed through and finished. Most of the fights were very long drawn, so that useful little progress bar at the bottom magically shot through most of the episodes, with the result that the whole thing was over within a week.

My comments : DBZ is way too well established for my appreciative comments to mean anything to it.

Dragonball GT :

Seemed a bit repetitive. Didn't really bother.

Blackadder :

Awesome stuff! Watched seasons 2, 3 and 4 (Season 1 was complete crap, even if I neglected comparison with its successors). Stored it safely for future reference.

Lord Of The Rings :

Read all 3 books (plus The Hobbit) while watching the corresponding movies side by side. Great fun.

Movies :

Came and went. Watched them more out of boredom than anything else. As can be expected, I don't have the faintest clue as to what I saw.

Asterix :

Read the whole thing. All 33 of them. Great way to kill time.

Naruto :

Watched all the episodes in great detail up till No. 172, after which the filler became a little too toxic to bear.

The simultaneous temptation of Naruto Shippuuden culminated in my ditching the filler and finishing whatever Shippuuden I had, and torrenting the rest.

My comments: One of the best anime series I have ever seen.

(Watched it before the last end sem exam and after the end sems were over)

One Piece :

Watched during winter hols. Have reached episode 112, but my drive has slowed down. This particular saga is a bit too long.

As such, it's a great series. Truly hilarious.

Acads :

Oh yeah. Came and went. Got very pained by them. Quite unlike the movies, which were bearable.

Perspective Check :

For those who don't know, this is not the life of a 'normal' IITian. There is no normal IITian.

We each have an ideal image of ourselves that we strive towards and our levels of accomplishment in this ideal vary greatly. The spectrum is unusually wide at IIT.

The academics is probably to blame.

Unfortunate vettiness

2007-08-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

This blog will be used by me to achieve my goal of showing the world exactly how crazy I am, and to laugh watching it all happen.

This first post will chronicle a very interesting morning I had...

7.45 : Wake. Realize ID110 is at 8 and panic. Also realize that bike has been sent for repairs, and pack all ideas of having bath or eating.

7.50: On returning from bathroom after brushing teeth, discover a monkey in the doorway munching on the bourbons and the pieces of apple that were presently on my table. Go towards it and get growled at. Wait for it push off and munch elsewhere.

7.55: Having scoured room and area outside it for sandals, realize their non-existence, suspect monkey involvement and decide to make do with borrowed seniors 'workshop' shoes (Size 10 standard black Bata school shoes). On opening door violently in frustration, scare off a large number of monkeys (:D)

8.05: Having readied myself and taken all the required books, realize that I still haven't worn the shoes, that I'm already late and all my freshie friends have packed early. Give up on the idea of getting a lift or attending class and go for bath.

8.40: Painfully trudge towards CRC after breakfast in my size 11 feet, encounter with horror a huge green snake slithering on the road in front of me. Stand rooted to the spot and move after a couple of seconds introspection on the meaning of life.

9.05: Arrive late for CY101 and find an absurd inability to comprehend anything being taught (And hence, to write anything down) and fight helplessly against drowsiness....

Two weeks later: Having brought a better pair of sandals from home, discover my old sandals arbitly parked outside some senior's room in the same wing...