Admissions, Socialising and Everything else
Posted by Uma Damle | Filed under General, New Delhi, Quizzing, Shutterbugs, Uncategorized
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:
NIFT will not spare you any time for extracurricular activities.NIFT will screw up your sleeping cycle.NIFT will turn you into a pathological insomniac.NIFT will make you lose weight.
There is no glamour to NIFT. It is pretty regular. So cut your preconceived notions short , really short.
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.
Bluegenemaid
<flotsam> Beauty lies in the lies of the beholder </flotsam>
NIFT Ho!
Posted by Uma Damle | Filed under It's My Life, New Delhi
Finally those lazy and sadistic bums at NIFT released the results they’d been sitting on for over a month now.And well…I got an All India Rank 253 
. I am pretty much content with my lot (At least I will be until I meet people with ranks higher than mine and my complexes kick in) not having taken any formal coaching or anything for this.
What a day it has been.From waking up in the morning to my board results (which I have no intentions of divulging here) and feeling like a low life to knowing that I am doing well in what I am truly interested in and that my future is probably in safe hands.Never experienced such a myriad of emotions in one single day.
The question now is whether I get the courses of my choice, which are Communication Design(which is more or less Graphic Designing) and Accessory Design( Which is more or less Product designing).Although most people who aim for NIFT aim for Fashion Designing but spending four years of my life in one of the premier design institutes in the country to become a high society Darzi (Tailor) seems kind of frivolous to me. Communication and Accessory design have little do with fashion per se and I’d be prepared for much wider range of career options that could include graphic design, movie and photography design, product design, comic book illustrations et al after specialized further education.
But the thing is with my rank there is a very slim chance of me getting Communication Design for which there are only 30 seats at Delhi and Mumbai each (not excluding reserved seats).Since I fall within the 200-300 bracket ,my counseling would be on the third day and there is a very good chance that all major seats in Mumbai and Delhi which are two of the best NIFTs would be exhausted on the first two days itself.I have better hopes for Accessory design if not in Delhi then in Bangalore or Hyderabad for sure.I am sure about what I want to do in future and its unlikely that I’ll take admission in NIFT if I don’t get any of these.
For now I have another entrance to look forward to.Its of a design institute called Maeer’s MIT School of Design , Pune (I know…Its so wannabe to have a name who’s short form is that of something/someone famous <cringes> ) which although is not known much outside the design fraternity but is known as a very good institute inside it.Its reputed to have an excellent faculty/academics, great hostels, and a good crowd.Apparently it gets the best batch of students after NID (National Institute of Design)-The mecca of designing in India whose entrance exam is the only one I haven’t cleared so far.But that is hardly surprising considering the fact that for an applying 50,000 it has a grand total of 75 seats of which 25 are reserved (Nah…I haven’t been celebrating with some bottled stuff and missed a few zeroes there ,in case you are wondering).I cleared the first written round of Maeer’s design (I REFUSE to call it MIT)(Incidentally they had THE most interesting and well designed question paper I’ve seen so far) to be selected in the top 150 for their studio test and interview which would take place at Pune on 3rd and 4th of July.
By the time I write the next post I’ll probably know where I am headed.
I’ll end this boring post now before you get put off LuminaR forever.
Bluegenemaid
Uma’s Brainwaves revisited #1
Posted by Uma Damle | Filed under General, Headshot, It's My Life, New Delhi, Technology
<Prologue>For some reason that only people who have visited the seas of Arthemalafasta on a planet called Zenkygnoziata in a galaxy called Farfarawaay (Bear with me here…I am currently suffering from EhtuGeetuitis) understand Prashanth who wanted me to transfer some of my posts from the old blog to this blog. Although just posting a link on the side blog would have been much less painful I figured its no big deal anyway since my blog didn’t go beyond a royal six posts (I’ve told this before haven’t I ?) and it would at least stop him from grumbling about me not posting here for a blissful 43 minutes.This post is a little behind times so please put appropriate correction factors here.</Prologue>
Autodesk Solution Day
Disclaimer:I am typing this post on an old dusty AMD K6 machine running on Win98 whose ancient cherry keyboard has been lying unused for ages, because the new computers are being hogged by other inmates of my house.V on this keyboard is very moody and works only when I thak-thak-thak it half a dozen times. So to spare me and my keyboard all the pain you guys will have to do without V for the rest of the post. I will refer to V as wee.
1st June was Autodesk Solution Day Conference at Hyatt Regency, Delhi. I attended it with my Dad who has been using AutoCad for over 13 years now and wants me to walk along his footsteps in 3D. Though I am tempted to give you a blow by blow account, I understand all the details might be too boring for most of the people.I’ll just giwe you the highlights.
Since teenagers and young students like me weren’t officially invited, I figured it wouldn’t be smart to go in there in my usual jeans and tee and look 16. That does not mean that I put chalk in my hair and wore a sari to look 60. I just donned a professional looking attire of black shirt and trousers. Apparently I managed to achieweee the desired effect with it. An elderly web developer who sat next to me in the conference asked me which company I served and at what post.I decided against lying and said I was a student.When he asked me the name of the college I said I was just a high school student. For one moment I was afraid he was going to yell,”Guards, seize her!!” but he said he was amazed and impressed that somebody so young could sit though all those demos and speeches with interest (that is without nodding off like the guy in front of me did)
The morning half of the conference was slightly dull with the only interesting things being a demo of AutoCAD 2007’s radical new features(Unless you want to nod off too,you don’t want to hear me talk about them) and a fabulous demo of 3DS Max. To my disappointment that was the only Discreet product they showcased from the unbelievably large range of software they for multimedia and movie development.They pretended as if Maya did not exist(I suspect they plan to kill Maya now that they own Alias.They’ll just upgrade 3DSMax with Maya’s features)The rest of the morning they spoke about User Licenses,Autodesk Dewelopment Network and stuff like that.
Lunch was served at Djinns,one of the hottest night clubs for the uber rich people of Delhi.I couldn’t believe I actually got a chance to see it from inside.The decor was a beautiful mosaic of old world artifacts.There were interesting things all over the walls and the ceiling like a pig’s head,a wooden fish as big as me (Which isn’t saying much), a dart board, old guitars, an ancient yellow parchment sign asking wisitors to keep their horses in the stable and their swords with the owner of the inn, beautifully crafted models of old airplanes just to name a few.There was an old western style telephone booth in front of the bar.The music was great.The lighting was breathtaking.I didn’t notice what I ate for lunch but the dessert (Apple struddles and custard caramel) was wery good.
The second half was broken out in 4 different fields called breakouts by the Autodesk people.Manufacturing Solutions, Building Solutions,Infrastructure Solutions and Education Solutions conducted by domain experts from the respectiwee fields.I sat in the education one for a while and got bored with the people on stage yakking about Autodesk’s efforts in the field of education over and over again.I sat for most of the time in the architecture break out which was excellently conducted by architects using Autodesk Software in architecture.They demoed Revit(I hawee typed “wee” here with a lot of efforts) and Architectural Desktop.They made designing magnificent buildings look so easy that for a moment I was tempted to think about architecture as a prospectiwee career option.There was this guy who designed and airport right in front of our eyes.
The best part of the whole conference was one right at the end. A demo of Alias Studio in the Manufacturing Solutions. I went into manufacturing break out just for that and it sure was worth missing some of the last bit of the Architecture solutions. It was presented by a Canadian who was using a Wacom Intuos 3 drawing tablet which is one of my ultimate fantasy gadgets. He sketched a conceptual wrist watch and converted it into a streamlined 3d model. The end product was beautiful. Since Alias Studio is used world over for styling cars he designed one right there in front of us.
From this post onwards I will be starting a blog series (for want of a better word)called Flotsam. They’re just random thoughts floating through the ocean of my brain that come on the blogshore carried by my brainwaves.
Flotsam:I wonder why web logs are called blogs. Wouldn’t it be fun if they are called Ogs? Then we will all be Ogres.
BlueGeneMaid
Bluegenemaid
