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>
Blast from the Past
Posted by Uma Damle | Filed under General, It's My Life, Uncategorized
OK… for all those people who thought I was dead, sorry for disrupting the celebrations but I am still pretty much alive(As alive as one can be after a month of exams).This must be my first post in about 3 or 4 months.Its not like I couldn’t blog because I was totally engrossed in studies (Far from it actually…) but I felt it was best not to invite my parents wrath after their patience had been put to quite a test during DX 2007, considering the amount of time I take to type one post.But after listening to all the things Prashanth says to me(Most of which can’t be said on a blog rated PG 13) regarding not taking the blog seriously I am compelled to start posting again.
I am currently having my boards (Computer Science left to go).Regarding my performance in them, the less is said the better it is. But I kind of couldn’t care less(Or at least I pretend not to..) .My eyes are currently set on something else that is of vital importance to my further education and career.Would speak more about it only when something is confirmed 
Apart from all this there is a LOT I need to post on.My exams, my design classes, movies I watched(A lot of them…), music, my new hobbies which include cooking and photography and other inconsequential events of my inconsequential little life. So all those people who want to be spared of listening to all that trash, there is still time until the end of my boards to unsubscribe.
Will be back soon..
Bluegenemaid
The First Rant…!!
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under Technology, Uncategorized
Now, some of you might think, why all this just for a blog? Wasn’t Wordpress.com good enough? What was the need for me to take a few pains to move my blog out to a personal webhost, get a domain registered, plus do a small plugin/theme hunt and few other tasks on top of that as well..?? The answer wouldn’t really be as simple as 42, the elaborate rant begins…
1. Claustrophobic Feel of Wordpress.com…
Wordpress as a free blogging site is infact a pretty cool thing. Has a vast developer community, has frequent updates, very very innovative features, cool themes added on a periodic basis, plus a very strong stable pro-blogging foundation. The problem comes with the way Wordpress restricts its users and removes the same restriction on payment of money. At times, it behaves like Yahoo! mail. You want to edit your theme and add your own widget? 10$ per annum! Just upgrade your space from a pitiable 50Mb, to a not-so-big 1Gb? 10$ an year! Or just to use the plugins of your choice? Forget it, Wordpress itself tells you to get out!
Unlike Blogger, which offers CSS editing, freedom to FTP stuff into it, gives no restriction in storing images and stuff, also allows you to add a domain of your own all for no cost, Wordpress does get hungry for money at times making me feel both stupid and claustrophobic in front of my pals who blog with blogger and self hosted sites. I couldn’t even add advertisements (not that I wanted but still, I need to rant here!), a few uncommon scripted widgets, although Wordpress allowed some of the more popular to be added with intuitive drag and drop interface. But still, it gave a me a wierd feeling of being controlled.
2. Hey, this skin looks cool, Can I try it? NO!
Wordpress.com (free service) has a selection of good, abysmal and not-my-type skins. The good ones are used by everyone, the bad ones are an eye-sore, the not-my-type skins are definitely not for me as I would like my blog to look the way I want it to. The wordpress theme development community is the largest of its kind and just browsing through the different sites, would easily get any non-fussy person a collection of 42 themes of his taste. Wordpress themes are well commented, community assisted, and nicely split into separate sections for the header, footer, etc etc… which give WYSIWYG-ers like me a small advantage when it comes to editing the themes.
The bad part is, Wordpress.com users can’t access that uber-cool resource. Same with plugins too, you have some very clever ones around, and Wordpress.com only gives those which it feels like giving and acts generous after that. What about the tons of plugins that it hasn’t been giving?
3. Good service, or No service?
Wordpress.com offers excellent service to those who aren’t really keen on running the plugins/themes that they want, and in all, are pretty much satisfied with what these guys ‘generously give away’. I wanted some more control, a little bit more flexibility. Wordpress isn’t really cooperative in that regard. Despite all that I got by being a free Wordpress.com user, I wanted some more… but then, Wordpress wasn’t bad too…
Here comes Wordpress.org to the rescue. Wordpress actually started out as a blogging engine for self-hosted blogs like this one. It was relatively recent that they started the free blogging service. Wordpress.org v2.3 is the blogging CMS that is installed on the Dreamhost server that I use. Complete with well organised folders for the installation themes and plugins, SSH with Linux, and addons to make life easier, it makes blogging for a geek a wonderful experience. Now that I have got a custom domain registered with Go Daddy, I feel really free, and contented with the amount of control I have on things… What’s more, the blogging life hasn’t become harder, the interface for blogging and stuff still remains the same or better, with the user friendly plugins I installed. The best part is, Wordpress no more tags around with LuminaR… Now, my blogger counterparts have every reason to be envious! As for the Wordpressers, ‘You guys made a nice choice by coming here, but think about going up now…’
The import was a breeze and I didn’t lose anything whether it was the blogroll, posts, comments, tags, drafts and what not! One thing that I lost was my Google Page Rank, about which I don’t give a šhìt! That thing will come up on itself soon enough. I would have to add in the new plugins myself, which means 2-3 extra clicks. I don’t mind it, considering the fact that I can edit plugins too… And readers, Uma and I are gonna put up content better than what you have ever seen from us here. This marks a raise in LuminaR standards, after all, domain ka paisa bhi toh wasool karna hai!
