Driving-Mess-Dizzy

Last week (or was it the previous one?) saw me taking the long-awaited driving test and passing with flying colors- flying colors, even though I drove at a marvelous top speed of 25kmph! I had been preparing for this ride for months. 3 months to be exact. I distinctly remember having wished the Motor Training School guide "Happy New Year". That would be my 4th training session or so. Things were going well until about the 16th session, after which I couldn't find time for the sessions. And so started a game of hide-and-seek. I changed the route I took to get home from the railway station, in order to avoid walking by the Motor Training School. I dreaded hearing the "Bhole Saheb!" that the trainer is prone to calling me. If the trainer saw me on the road I'd look the other way and pretend I had not seen him. Or maybe duck into the nearest gully. All because I hadn't a clue about how soon or how late I'd get back from college, and hence couldn't book a slot for a driving session. The biggest brat in the country couldn't avoid school the way I did.

The first week of March offered some leisure and I made up my mind to get done with it. The driving license I mean. I trundled up to my trainer with a sheepish grin on my face. The expression on my face might have been saying "Hey old boy! Is this a nice morning or what?" but his face clearly said "Oh! The crown prince is here! How wonderful!" in a sarcastic way. After 3 more evenings I was pressing all the right peddles and was up for the test. The test would be on Friday. But hold on! I was missing something. I had put off getting recommendation letters from my profs for a number of days, and Friday would be the last chance to get them, if I had to post the recos on time. The price of procrastination, one would say. But then I'm one who likes to learn things the hard way.

Frantic Friday : I called up dear old Srikanth. If there's someone I can trust to dig me out of a hole, it's him. Even Jeeves would approve with a "He is quite the man, sir". So, Srikanth agreed to get the letters from the profs on my behalf while I went for the driving test. My driving trainer drove 5 of us trainees to the RTO office in a place in Wadala that resembles a wasteland- the kind you see in movies, where all the bad guys get together to buy and sell hardware. I'd been here before for getting the learner's license, and was not looking forward to spending much time in this foul place. It took an hour for the driving school's agent to set up the test- the relevent papers, the policeman, the car et al. And then I took the test, with only the agent in the front seat. I changed a gear or two, and took a beautiful U-turn- I wish I could draw so well. A bit of waiting, stamping documents and thumb-impressioning later, I left the place, secure in the knowledge that the license was on its way. By 2 p.m. I was back in college, and I found that Srikanth had done some of the cumbersome work I had given him. Finding 2 of the profs turned out to be difficult and it was at 4.55 p.m. that I found myself in Dr.Daruwala's cabin, getting his reco. At the same moment, Srikanth was getting the reco from Prof.Nair, just as she was leaving. As I reached the quadrangle in a daze, I marveled at how lucky I had been. I spent the next hour with Srikanth, idling my time away in the quad , as I have lately been predisposed to doing. And I enjoyed the chocolates gifted by my juniors (I adore them all, the juniors I mean!) since it was chocolate day in college. Life couldn't be better, or what?

A Few Rants

The pallid gloom that had descended on my mind for the past two days culminated in a disastrous Valentine's Day. The gloom was not the effect of some loss or sadness, rather it was the vacuum in my mind. It's my biggest foe- the lack of passion, the lack of desire. My immediate concerns are:

1. The K gd/pi was not so good. I might not make it. With the A interview only 10 days away, it's time to pull up my socks.
2. Today, I lost my cellphone again or perhaps it was stolen. I'm tired of my clumsiness. I'm ashamed of losing stuff bought with my family's hard-earned money. I have to lodge a police complaint tomorrow and get a replacement SIM card soon. I know the process. Just did it last month. And a few months before that too.
3. The mid-semester test is coming up. Three days to go and I have barely started the preparations. I cannot afford to score badly this semester. And yes, there are assignments to be completed; one is to be submitted tomorrow. I'll start writing now.
4. My project guide was searching for our group today. We haven't seen her in more than 2 months. Worse, we haven't started work on the project. Shameful. We have to start in earnest now.
5. I haven't seen my driving instructor in quite a while. 6 more sessions to go, followed by the test. I wonder when I'm going to get a license.

Ah well, tough times are here again, though they are self-inflicted. I see an exciting month and a half ahead. As always, everything will fall into place. Yes, it will.

An Addiction called Online Quizzing

I spent the first few days of January trying to crack the online quiz at Kurukshetra '08. This is the second one I have spent much time on, the previous being the Mood Indigo quiz. And I have found this to be very addictive. It is great fun, not just because of the joy of getting an answer right, but also because of the thousand things one learns about in the process. Here's an example:

Connect the three pictures.

The explanation:

The first pic is of La Sagrada Família, the biggest Roman Catholic Church in the world, which is being built in Barcelona. The most amazing thing is that its construction began in 1882 and it is proposed to be completed in 2026!

The second pic is of the Lo Shu turtle, a favorite symbol of the Chinese, long believed to bring money, luck, high status and good health- it is highly recommended by Feng Shui practitioners.

The third pic is Melancolia I, an engraving by Albrecht Dürer.

The connection??? MAGIC SQUARE!!!

The Passion façade of the Sagrada Família church, designed by sculptor Josep Subirachs, features a 4×4 magic square (left). The magic constant of the square is 33, the age of Jesus at the time of the Passion. The legend of the Lo Shu, the dragon turtle, has that the turtle has a magic square on its back(right). Melancolia I contains a magic square(bottom pic). In fact, the square on the passion facade is a modification of Dürer's square. More on these magic squares here: 1 2

Trash I Stash!

A few days back, my drawer no.1 (the most important one, since it houses my wallet) started leaking papers from the brim. "Time to clean up", I thought. Following is a list of some of the items found:

1. A discarded passport application form

2. Wrappers of Orbit Winterfrost(green) and Spearmint(blue)

3. A mid-semester test paper - Signal Processing I (September, 2006)

4. Design of sawtooth generator using UJT relaxation oscillator.
The paper describing one of our circuits for the Electronics Workshop (October, 2006)

5. A DI practice exercise I solved at TIME.

6. A detailed action plan for October, which I never stuck to.

7. A plastic bag with a thread tied around its neck- I had used it to plug a leak in the overflow pipe of the overhead water storage tank. Not that it worked!

8. A list of candidates for the EESA (The students association) committee of last year.

9. The introductory speech I had prepared for my German oral exam.

10.The case of an anti-allergy ointment!

11. The registration card for a vaccination camp:

Hepatitis 'B' liberation campaign - Get vaccinated for Rs.20
Combo pack: Hepatitis B + Typhoid for Rs.200 only
Free dose for handicap, blinds and B.P.L. Card holders.

I don't know how I managed to get myself registered for it. And worse, I didn't go.
Nonetheless, Rs.20 for the Hepatitis B liberation campaign.

12. A paper where I had noted the various errors that my previous PC (it's still on the table) had thrown up as excuses not to work.(All these during a single breakdown last year)

i. System Error
Windows cannot read from drive C.

ii. System Error
Sector not found reading drive C
Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? (All are ways of saying "Buzz off, you jerk!")

iii.Unable to write to disk in Drive C.
Data or files may be lost.

iv.If this is a network, make sure the network is working.
If it is a local disk, check disk

Bless my old PC. It didn't bungle up even once during the online applications!

13. Miscellaneous items:

i. Britannia Khao World Cup Jao - World Cup 99 Ticket Book

ii. 50 pencils of 5 different brands. 20 non-functional pens.4 pencil batteries.

iii. Hundreds of regular and stapler pins- out of their boxes naturally.

iv. Wires, soldering material, push-button switches, remnants of a dynamo-powered torch, my
last digital wristwatch, a stapler, a comb and my WALLET.