2008 July | ...The LuminaR...

Prolouge:Written in the days I cared about things like class Xth Board marks..

Mona Lisa Smile

If people expect me to begin this post with an explanation on why I have allowed my blog to die a slow and painful death,they’d be disappointed. I have no explanation except the fact that I am finding out that blogging is no cake walk when you have one of your own. This post is more of an attempt to drive away the demons of Xth CBSE Result due tomorrow than to inject some life in my blog.I have finally learned to swim freestyle (Does a mad tribal dance, gets stared at by Mom and Dad who believed their daughter was sane until now). My day usually begins at 5.00 in the morning when I head for the swimming pool followed by an hour of underwater bliss. When I step out of the pool it feels as if each and every particle of my body is trying to drag me down back in. But as a direct fall out of swimming regularly I have acquired a spectacular tan. I can see the outline of the swimming suit on my neck and back. But who cares? Swimming is worth having a slightly darker skin.

I am in a good mood these days because my Sims are in a good mood. I love that game(The only game I like other than NFSU(More on NFSU later)). Maybe still inside me is a little girl who likes to play with dolls in a doll house. And which little girl wouldn’t like dolls that are intelligent, smart, have a multi-faceted personality, get hungry, have a social life, like taking a bath, make their bed after they wake up, watch TV, check their e-mails, pay their bills, cook spaghetti and meat balls and <sniggers> take care of their bladder.The game play is amazingly life like (Except at a few points like when they pull a book out of nowhere when asked to read in the bed) and is challenging as hëll. It isn’t easy to keep your Sim happy and cheerful all the time and take care of their tough often contradicting aspirations.For example a beautiful Sim that I’ve named Arwen has an alarming ambition of going out with three guys at once <Tries and fails to keep a straight face>. They lead complex lives like we do (Although I have never met anybody who’d like to complicate life by going out with three people at one time) and that is exactly what makes the game so riveting.But there is something that the game has managed to teach me (Not referring to the lesson of not going out with three guys at a time)
I was playing with this character of a young girl.As it came about she started having(or rather I made her have)a romantic relationship with a guy in her neighborhood.They romanced each other,did all the things young couples do(Not all the way though ;)) and I was generally having a good time during their whirlwind courtship.Then the guy proposed to my character and since I was curious to see which level they take their relationship to I made my character accept.So the guy’s character also moved into my control now as in I now had to take care of his happiness too.All hëll broke lose.It was hard enough time taking care of that one character now I had to keep another character happy too.My characters grew miserable.I couldn’t take care of both their needs simultaneously.They cribbed all the time,fought with each other and finally I grew so tired that I quit playing the game.Then I realized maybe marriage is a bit like this…just the thing is that there is no restart or quit button when you can’t take the responsibility anymore.

To try and not think about the result of my exams I have gone on a movie-watching spree.Some one line reviews.

Harry Potter GOF: Slightly less unbearable than the previous movies.

Robots:A delightful, very well made, light hearted movie with serious undertones (which I’d like to explain some day)

Spirited Away:Mediocre plot but amazing graphics

Erin Brokovich:A strong story about a strong woman.Amazing acting by Julia Roberts.

Rang De Basanti:Stunning choreography,awesome music,great acting,realistic touching plot sans any melodrama,this movie deserves a separate post.

I have taken to going on long lonely walks in the JNU campus to take my mind off distressing stuff.It’s beautiful especially when it rains and everything in sight is green,yellow and orange and the peacocks come out and dance.The view from Parthsarthy point,the highest altitude point in JNU campus inspires me to poetry.The students are a lucky lot to study in a campus so gorgeous

OK I think I will finish this post now and go back to chewing my nails and thinking about the results.

Bluegenemaid

PS: I think you all must have realized by now that this post had nothing to do with Mona Lisa or her smile.I figured some title was better than no title.

Admissions, Socialising and Everything else

After six agonizing months of NIFT’s lethargic tests, results, formalities and procedures I finally had my counseling a few days ago.I finally know where I’d be spending the next four years of my life and that would be <trumpets and drums> NIFT Bangalore </trumpets and drums>. I’d be doing Fashion Communication- better known as Communication Design-there.

After all the R&D on what seats go where (Its actually become a new hobby of my dad who is now planning to write a research paper on it), what was my best bet and endless disaster planning for worst case scenarios, NIFT unexpectedly opened four new centers and new courses at old centers this year.You’d think that the NIFT admin would care to put a news that big up on the website, but then going by the maintenance levels of the website I am assuming they aren’t aware of the fact that they have one in the first place. Until now there were only 36 seats for FC in NIFT so it was mostly out of my reach and my best bet was Accessory design-better known as Product Design-at Bangalore or Hyderabad.I was clueless about the new developments until they switched the projector on to show the seats available.When I saw FC seats in Bangalore I wondered if I was still in the speech-induced-stupor I’d been put into listening to the talk by NIFT people.Turns out that I wasn’t and I finally got the second best thing that I could have got in NIFT, the first being FC in Delhi.Although there was one single seat left in (stinking)Mumbai FC it was thankfully taken by the girl just a rank above me.May her soul rest in peace.

So now gearing up for four years of hostel life.I am enjoying my last few days of blissful ignorance about how bad it can be.I have been getting a lot of 10-tips-on-survival-in-tropical-forests-and-college-hostels from concerned family and friends. But I guess I am going to have to come up with some custom made tips on survival in NIFT Hostels soon enough.About how to deal with no dry clothes(which we’d probably have to wash ourselves)scenario, unfinished assignments(Ah not again.Had enough of them in school) and not-immediately-fatal-yet-barely-edible cafeteria food (Wouldn’t really mind it. Would help me shed some weight).

And for those people who think in NIFT the most difficult thing one has to do is deciding between halter necks and a spaghetti straps, a mighty senior put it very aptly on an Orkut community:

Knowing that I’d be leaving Delhi and a lot of people I have always wanted to know better behind, I’ve taken a leaf out of the books of social squids like Prashanth and have started talking to people leaving my comfortable spot from beaneath a rock where I’ve been hibernating forever.

So I had two really memorable meetings with Prash and the much-fabled Roshan Shariff-currently studying in University of Alberta in Edmonton,Canada.There was good food, some really kick-ášš movies, aimless wandering around in JNU and some discussions on everything else.Me and Prashanth finally got round to showing our Quiz, Crossword and CodeX question papers to Roshan. Although he got just about everything in the quiz right, we managed to stump him with the Crossword and the Codex.No amount of appreciation from anyone else could be as gratifying.Sporting the all-knowing and mysterious Mona Lisa smile that comes from making and hosting crosswords and Quizzes, in front of a guy who has made some of the most mind-boggling crosswords of our time was pure bliss-the sort that one feels only when they fit into that old pair of jeans that hadn’t fit for the last 3 years.

Then we had the historical first ever Pan Delhi Geek Meet at Piccadelhi in PVR Plaza. Although the meeting didn’t “pan” out as grandly as the organizers had envisioned-due to low attendance-it was still a very interesting meeting nonetheless where I got to meet some of the members of the geek community I knew only vaguely and two really interesting people from IBNMS who surprisingly had been through LuminaR and recognized me.The worst part of the meeting was that people had broken into small groups of their own with people at one end of the table wondering what the people at the other end were finding so funny.But we did have some nice discussions and conversation which compensated for the overpriced food.Hope we’d have more of these at a more hearing-what-your-neighbor-is-saying friendly places where the music wouldn’t be loud enough to drown everything else out.

These are probably my last few days of freedom before forever hence I am utilizing this time by doing nothing - the one activity that I’d be dying to do in a month’s time.
Have a lot to post a lot about everything else before I leave civilization. Hope I get around to doing it.