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.
Uma’s Brainwaves Revisited #2
Posted by Uma Damle | Filed under Blogging, General, Headshot, I think therefore I watch, It's My Life, School Life
Prolouge:Written in the days I cared about things like class Xth Board marks..
Mona Lisa Smile
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.
Another RANT: The Story of Indian Students
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under Education, FIITJEE Pinnacle, Headshot, School Life
Really, the present happenings across my (older) peers’ lives sends jolts of electricity making all hair on my rise up, and has all the hairless parts goosebumped! In another few months, fate would get me close to something like this. It really makes me uncomfortable looking at people whom I thought were of the deserving kind in a helpless state. Really, Indian Education system makes beggars out of the brightest minds in the country.
Caution: You might see this post the same way you usually see rants on most other Indian blogs, especially on those run by students who are going through the toughest examinations in the world… Or you might see it as another perspective, another unique opinion, or perhaps something a degree lesser than a consolation to all those who have gone crazy in ranting so vehemently not just on their blogs, but in those phone calls better used as ventilators, those conversations which could more or less be addressed as punches on a rice sack or maybe those moments spent in Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt…
Here it goes…
Thinking in depth about everything, education in India lacks the 3 big M(s)… Money, Mindset and Modernisation. These things are barely enough to bring out just a few hundred successful professionals each year with a potential of several million. lack of money is a big problem in itself. Lack of money means so many things… lack of good colleges, lack of sufficient infrastructure in those colleges, or even lack of good teaching faculty in the colleges. The few institutes which DO get money don’t stand up anywhere when compared to the international institutes. Honestly speaking, it is just the maddening admission intake ratio or you might say the filtering process with the least porous membrane that gets nothing but the best inside. Maybe it is the general intellect of the students which gets IITs in the top 100 ranks of the world.
How does this effect India? Due to the lack of quality institutes, the success or the money making tendency of students is concentrated in just a few camps. Because opportunities are so few, and everyone in the populous of a billion odd people have big dreams, especially most literate ones, attachment towards studies is totally lost. Actually, studying is something someone OUGHT to do in order to earn enough to meet the family standards, which disproportionately grows with the country’s average income. The result - desperation,hunger and a famine like state with people craving for drops of those few seats which can mean the difference between owning a 100cc bike and luxury car in India.
There is this trend in India that makes money vending machines to placed in just certain fields. Like for instance, this particular hour has the management guys making the most out of the lot. A few years ago, it was the rapidly growing software engineering industry (which are mostly test centers or menial job sites for the world’s largest software MNCs) that got maximum professionals. All this leads to narrowing down what a student might want to do. Now everyone I know wants to go for the management side after the COMPULSORY engineering course. After all, everyone worries about FUD. With an Engg. degree in hand, he is ready to mint quite a bit, just in case management, which requires any damned degree as a pre-requisite doesn’t work out. The slightly under-exposed or the innocent sort speak what they have in mind… “It would give me better placement!”. The smarter ones, who know people or critics like me are around, fake or artificially create interest towards management. In reality, it is that very interest that the Indian students have lost. Money can actually buy everything, even interest. If a child confesses that he is not interested in Engg., the family and the brigade of relatives have him hypnotized into being interested in that subject.
Really, I know so many people, even upcoming software engg., who don’t have a crumb of interest towards their subject finally ending up as professionals for Indian counter-parts of well-known corporations really complacent about getting a job that pays them a tenth of a million rupees. People fail to realize that it might be a lot when seen in Indian standards, but then it is cheap labour for companies like MS, which would get those drudging jobs else where at a higher rate. Indians have lost choice, taste and the will to opt for what they really desire. Socio-economic conditions keep true interests confined inside, and the worst part being that the student never even realizes that he inside a fake world world which he didn’t actually desired to design. He has a fake illusion of happiness and satisfaction which finally removes feelings like - “Am I going to do this for the next 30 years of my life?” nurturing similar mentality in the next generation as well. The children of the so-called big professionals in India grow up to be in a similar race for trophie made up of anti-matter called success. Its a vicious loop that has to be stopped, and it is not really impossible to accomplish that.
Solutions can be many -
*Availability of greater number of universities
*Larger allocation of budget for higher education
*Competence amongst Indian colleges to go ahead of others in the world
*More diverse corporations basing themselves in India
*Corporations giving out large scale projects amidst Indian minds which are more than capable to create things, provided aptitude is generated at an early age
Aptitude comes during high school, when the student dreams. Dreams can be closer to reality than anyone might think. Dreaming, pondering is an activity that can lead students to dig and know more about what they might be doing in the future. Here, immature kids at the age of 18, who know just a little more than the placement opportunities in different fields decide what they could be doing for the next 42 years of their life. Coming to think about it, how much does an average student know about what exactly happens in in any stream of engineering that he might enroll himself in? How does he know that he is interested in it? Actually, Indians don’t need to know that. It’s almost like choosing what pays the most here. Finally, what you get to see here is brainy kids turning into menially productive mugpots, in time-lapse cinematography. And frankly speaking, I really don’t enjoy any bit of that show…
Oops… A Gross error!
Posted by Uma Damle | Filed under General, Headshot, Humour
IPL matches with their unexpected outcomes and twists and turns manage to befuddle and wrong foot even some of the most seasoned commentators by the look of it. Here is a screen shot from http://www.cricinfo.com live commentary section from yesterday’s Mumbai vs. Delhi match (Didn’t bother with those fancy and lame team names).Some unfortunate typo this was 
For the nincompoops reading this, the correct word was shot.
Bluegenemaid
