Solving Rubik's Cube

Got my hands on a Rubik's cube & the experience has been fun. (puzzle solving)

Photo Courtesy to Wikipedia - Rubik's Cube

I have been trying to solve this puzzle, and getting through the basics is fun. Going through it repeatedly makes it easier and the steps & patterns start to fall in place & it starts to make sense. I just hope I can make it second nature. People should give it a try and should not loose heart if not being able to solve. The people that saw me solving it throughout my day, show interest in the Magic Cube (earlier name for Rubik's cube before the patenting) but just loose interest once they cannot get the colours to match. 

Check out the wikipedia article on Rubik's Cube. CLICK HERE.

Attestation of academic docs.

Foreign countries do not recognise any of the degrees of India. So the degrees need to be attested by the government of India. Of course the departments responsible for these are as follows.

STEP 1: The academic degree needs to be attested by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry (In other words, this is also the ministry of education). This particular ministry has all the information needed to know whether a college or university is authentic or not. Therefore their attestation is needed on the academic degree (of course on the back - if the degree is laminated then the lamination on the back should be removed. Get professional help). HRD attestation centres are available in most of the state capitals. The list of centres can be downloaded from the HRD link below. Also an application form is needed to be submitted with the academic degree, this also can be downloaded from the link below. Time required for attestation: roughly an hour or more depending on the centres load. Also the charge for this is only Rs 50 as one needs to make an Indian Postal Order for Rs 50 and submit with the document.
Click HERE for downloading attestation related documents from HRD website (One needs PDF reader).

STEP 2: After getting the HRD attestation, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) needs to attest the academic degree. This is because any foreign related Embassy in India recognises any document attested by the MEA as they are in direct contact with each other. Of course the Embassies verify the attested document with the MEA office. This attestation is done only in Delhi at Patiala House near India Gate. Time period for attestation: One can collect it in one hour after submission. No charges for this as it is a compulsory step after HRD attestation.

STEP 3: After the MEA attestation, one can submit the documents with the respective Embassy depending upon their submission time and collection time. Some Embassies collect in morning hours and return in the afternoons or even take a couple of days to return the academic document. Charges for the attestation varies from Embassy to Embassy. All the embassies are situated at Delhi in Chanakyapuri area.

The whole attestation process is not a lengthy one but then again we are talking about Indian government officials. Anyway, the documents that need to be carried with one to the HRD ministry attestation centre is the Academic Degree, Cumulative Marksheet (or Individual marksheet if cumulative is not there) and the Passport. Xerox/Photocopies of the above three documents should be submitted with the application form. The passport will be instantly returned after verifying with the copy. So no submission of the passport. The academic degree and cumulative marsheet will be returned within the hour. For MEA, the academic degree needs to be only submitted for attestation, but one can carry the cumulative marksheet and passport just in case for showing. For submission in the Embassy, only the academic degree is needed. In this case also Passport should be carried just in case for showing. In general all these attestation work is done by the person itself or his/her relative. There are official attestation agencies which go through all the above process on behalf of a person, of course they charge money which starts generally above Rs. 5000 onwards.

New Blog related to Quotes

Just made a new blog related to interesting quotes I come across. They can be in reality or from a Movie, Anime, Actors, Ordinary people or anything. As long as they are interesting and worth something to read and remember, they will be available on the blog. Hope you all will give it a chance. Just give it a quick peek.

Quotable Quotes --> Click This.

Aero India 2007

The Aero India 2007 show was held between 7th to 11th February. I attended the show on Saturday, 10th February with couple of my friends. We thought of reaching there in the morning around 10am so that we can see the planes in action between 11am and 1 pm. But as being a weekend and most of them attending the Aero India show, the roads were jammed. We reached there at around 11:45 am, found a parking space and went to see the show and the exhibition.

In 2005, I had attended the 5th Aero India show. The difference between this years and 2005 show was the inclusion of some new exhibits and some planes. The one I found attractive was the MIG-29 OVTS or the so called MIG-35. Their performance was beautiful when compared to the F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-18 Super Hornet. Even the new fighter aircraft Grephen made by the swedish company was in display. The flying by this plane was also amazing.

In the exhibition area, the presentations and prototype models were on display. Lots of electronic gadgets, engine designs and other accessories were on display. In the Indian exhibit section, HAL displayed there latest prototypes including the new Light Combat Helicopter. If they really produce these then this could prove very advantageous for combat. Supposedly HAL will be producing 70 of these by 2009 which will be under use by the military. This Helicopter gave a very close resemblance to the Apache and Cobra Helicopters which are used for Air to Surface and Air to Air attacks. These are used to take out ground forces like infantry, trucks and even tanks.

I am sure that the next Aero India show in 2009 will be more entertaining with some new flying skills and also some cool exhibits meant for viewing for visitors.

Teacher's Day

It funny to know that today, 5th September is celebrated in India as Teacher's day. It's funny as many don't know the reason for that. This date corresponds to the Birthday of a famous teacher who also became the 2nd president of India, Dr. Radhakrishnan. It started off in 1962 when some of his students wanted to celebrate his birthday. He suggested that instead of celebrating only his birthday why not celebrate a day for all the teachers. Teachers have contributed a lot to a student's life and also the students want to remember and respect their teachers. What better than a particular day to spend time remembering some good times.

By chance yesterday I met a teacher at the airport who taught me Hindi in school from 1992 to 1995. She was really amazed that I recoginised her and more astonished for me remembering her. I cannot tell what others think about there teachers but I remember most of them who taught me throughout my life as they have spent time in improving me in making me a better person. I do hold them in high respect for the contributions they made including the times they complained my parents about my bad performance in school or regarding my talkative nature which got me into trouble a lot of times. I still drop by my school whenever i am in the neighbourhood to pay my respects to the teachers who had taught me.

My current Status

It's been quite a while since I wrote any post on my blog. I had been on journey and was visiting my parents. The trip was hectic as I took a flight with lot of transit points. While returning to Bangalore, I had stop overs at Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and finally landed on HAL Airport Bangalore. Anyways the trips are alright but I still suffer sometimes from Jetlags and fatigues.

Anyways since I returned, I was kind of a little busy so have been putting less time on the blog. But I ofcourse have tons of things to write about. Also this month's Rave Magazine is out which has come out after 2 months. As I am not subscribing the magazine, its sometimes hard to find. But a good list of new musics and songs have been mentioned. By the way the Head office of Rave Magazine is in Bangalore on Richmond road.

Also this month's Digit Magazine has a lot to offer with reviews of MP3 Players and Speakers (2.1, 4.1 and ofcourse 5.1's) It gives a good insight and options for people looking into buying economical speakers. As for me I have a Mercury 5.1 which I had puurchased in 2002 and it still can blow me away with its power. It had been economical at that time. I guess now in 2006 better choices will be there for people.

Another good stuff to read is the Reader's digest as they provide a lot of hilarious jokes and also beautiful articles. I keep seeing lots of people taking up GRE and Vocab books for strengthing their language skills. But seriously if they spend time on this digest it can do a lot good especially for the school kids as it's worth for them to read.

So I hope everyone is ready as I am back with information on different things for people and ofcourse am going to write about my journeys, good and bad times and other things.

Gulf Air travel

I have travelled on many airlines and this time my travel agent suggested to give a try on Gulf Air. At each airport an airlines is allowed usually to stay upto 2 hours after which they have to pay rent for the time they stay at the airport. Therefore most of the airlines belonging to a country make return trips. Example: The British Airways flight from London to Bangalore makes a trip from London to Bangalore and then picks up passengers at the Bangalore airport and makes a return trip back to London. 2 hours is usually very much sufficient for Re-fuelling, Caterers, luggage transportation and other services. Each flight returns to their country where the flight originated and is then sent to the hangers for re-checking or maintenance depending upon the hours of air travel.

Timings of flights are put in so many ways like Long journey flights take off during night hours as more passengers (naturally after duty hours) can be expected and also the flight travel time is long leading the flight to reach in the early morning in the destination country. It is ofcourse great for the pilot and also passengers. For short journeys usually flights are kept throughout the day.

Back to the topic, I will give details about each airport in separate posts. My journey originated in Bangalore from HAL airport. I travelled through 3 aircrafts before reaching my destination. All the aircrafts I travelled were Airbus 320s. My first flight took me from Bangalore to Muscat at Seeb Airport. My next flight was from Muscat to Bahrain and then another flight to Kuwait. The whole journey took nearly 12 hours excluding the long awaiting time at the originating airport of Bangalore.

Talking about the Gulf Air, the outer look is attractive as they have the front half of the plane painted in gold colour. The inflight services are alright for a Airbus 320. Lunch is provided at the transit Airport if the transit stay is long. So I can say the service is worthwhile. But the best service I received was when I landed in Kuwait as I came to know that my luggage had not arrived with my flight. I placed a complaint in the Baggage claim department at Kuwait Airport. The next day when I enquired over the phone regarding my baggages, I was informed that my luggage was at Muscat airport and would be sent that night. Therefore I had to pick up my baggages the next day. The interesting thing was that since I am one of the very few to pick up my baggages at the baggage claim office in the Cargo terminal, they took their sweet time in going through my things. I think I must have spend half an hour and had to explain anything and everything he thought could be confiscated.

Got myself Sketched

I really love sketches of anything as it really looks amazing. It has something more special than photos. If you people have seen Titanic then you will see the amazing hand movements in the making of sketches and those beautiful descriptions of the subject. Not only in the movies, in real life I have seen many people who make amazing sketches but I doubt whether they are given much importance or appreciation which they deserve.

Since it was a Sunday, I dropped by Forum Mall with a friend of mine. There is a sketch machine put up and I got myself snapped by it. The whole process takes hardly 2 minutes. Intially they will take 3 snaps. Before each snap is taken, 5 seconds countdown is given to prepare oneself. There is a gap of another 10 seconds between the next snap. After the 3 snaps are taken, we are given a choice to choose which snap is to be sketched. After this, there is another type of choice which deals with the smoothness or sharpness and also the strokes which are brush or fine. Each type is mentioned after a famous painter like Leonardo and Michelangelo. After this whole process of choosing, there is a minutes time for the printout to pop out. Framing of the sketch is also done.

At the bottom right, name of the artistic type is mentioned. Like in mine Leonardo is signed with the date mentioned as 23.03.06. On the bottom right corner, the logo of the company which owns the machine is mentioned. Not a bad way to have a memory saved in a different format. At one time, people wanted to shift from Black & White to colour, but looks like old things hardly die out. It's a different experience.

Trip to college

Today I made a trip to my college VIT for which I had to leave early from my home to catch a train. Since I had already checked up on the internet that seats were available on the Shatabdi Express leaving Bangalore at 6 am and reaching Katpadi at 9 am, so I left my house early intending on catching a BMTC bus or an auto. Funny as it may sound, I kept waiting from 5 am till 5:30 am in search for a BMTC bus or an auto, neither of which were available. The road on which I was waiting is actually having heavy traffic of buses and autos throughout the day. So it looked like my day wasn't starting of well.

Anyways I did get an auto who was charging me 1.5 times the meter. Since it was way before 6 am I accepted, as if I had a choice due to the scarcity of autos (This is were I keep trying to figure out where are the 1 lakh autos in this city disappearing to). I reached the station around 5:45 am and was happy that I will make it. Now when I stood infornt of the current reservation counter, that was it. A large queue of people waiting for booking ticket or cancelling existing ones. There were 3 trains going to leave in the next 45 minutes. Shatabdi at 6 am, Intercity Exp at 6:15 am and Lalbagh at 6:30 am. Now I was hoping to get my tickets by then. The person sitting at the counter said 'stay in a queue and wait for your turn' which I had to do to get a ticket. The only difference is that I got my ticket at 6:15 am that also for Lalbagh as Shatabdi had left the station as I was waiting for the tickets. I kept guessing that the priority for trains should be given at some point but looks like the person behind the counter just cares about doing his job comfortably without any problems or doesn't care if one misses his train or not. Lucky for me I got one of the last seats on Lalbagh Exp. while Shatabdi had a lot of free seats. The system at some point sucks.

I reached my college at 10 am and finished up my work at the student's records and then met up with some of my juniors. They all were busy with there exams or project reviews. The temperature at the college was soring high. Some things had changed at the college since I had last visited like infrastructure. After all this, I planned to return back to Bangalore by the 4 pm bus. The bus was an A/C Volvo run by a private agency group. The buses are always amazing, well maintained and the roads have improved. The road on which we were travelling is part of the 'Golden Quadrilateral' project so the quality is good, not only that I guess it could be due to the newly built roads. Anyways the journey was comfortable, only thing to find was the amount of vehicles moving on the roads. Large quantities of Trucks were travelling and the process of overtaking keeps occuring frequently.

The bus was able to cover the distance until Hosur town without any interruptions as not much traffic on the roads. This town being just 40 kms from Bangalore is very easy to reach in 45 minutes. When travelling from Hosur to Bangalore usually the trip will be 1 hour due to the major checkpoints for vehicles by the Karnataka Transportation check post. After this when we pass the famous Electronic city which can get the roads to a standstill due to traffic problems can get anyone in 1.5 to 2.5 hours. But today being a saturday was comfortable enough to get through to the town without any jams. I was able to get down at the dropping point and then hired an auto after bargining as all were quoting there own price.

This is how a trip can go by. Sometimes the days are worse than all this. One comes to know about it when you see the person cursing or dead sleeping after arriving. What can one do to improve the system and make it more efficient.

College weather

This post is about the how weather changes around my college, VIT. During my stay for 4 years, the climate had always been pretty hot. But there were times when during the monsoons or winters when one could see amazing things. In the early hours of the day, one can find some awesome scenery which could blow your mind away. I would have not been suprised if I were in a hill station but when I saw the clouds passing through the hills near our college, it was an amazing sight.

During the monsoon months, the showers are sometimes heavy and it is difficult for us to leave the hostels. This sometimes used to be the best reason for not attending classes but the timing is supposed to be correct like raining at the time when we have to leave for class. But that mostly never happened making us attend classes. Worst is when it rained during our classes, we could never get to bunk or get free classes as there was nothing to do. But when it rained during the day time then the nights used to be pleasant so we had good walks around the hostel campus and also enjoyed sleeping comfortable during the nights.

During the summer months, the sun would really make the days tough and drive us into the showers couple of times a day. The temperature could easily go to 40C +. That would really make us tired if we returned to hostel and had to go again to college. During a semester break, who will like to stay in the college and spend there time getting baked, so almost everyone use to go home for vacation.

These pictures which are displayed were taken in the early hours in November. After staying in college during the hot months I never had expected to see this.

Mornings of Peace in BLR

In a city like Bangalore, the mornings are really beautiful. I enjoy it in one way as I have to attend a 7 am class and therefore leave around 6:30 am to catch a bus. There is no traffic jam at this hour and the bus journeys are smooth with regarding to the number of people not the road. The road conditions are as they were but recently have seen an increased amount of road maintainence going on. The bangalore authorities have been quiet busy by putting another layer of tar on the roads. That also on all the inner roads of many areas. Anyways, the roads are peaceful at this hour until after 7 am when the rush begins. The same 30 minute trip when made during the rest of the day can be 50 minutes to an hour and half.

The rest of the day in Bangalore until the night time is as congested as it can be. Also like the recent newspaper article which states that BESCOM is helpless if there is loss of power in areas from 6-9 am and 6-9 pm as they are busy trying to replace transformers which are damaged due to overloads. BESCOM is finding it tough to handle the large power requirements but ofcourse they do love going on diconnection drives in different areas when bills are not paid.

Echo: Sounds of Music

In 2002, when i had entered into my second year of college, Echo took place. It was a symposium in which technical papers were presented. Apart from the hectic paper presentations which started in the morning after breakfast at around 10am would go on till lunch at 1 and then resume at 2 which will then finally end by 5pm. Rest of the time would be for fun. We had food stalls set up so that food can be taken which was atleast not the one in the hostel mess. (What can we do, we got too used to the food!!!) Apart from the food stall would be the Music stall, which had a computer with large speakers connected to the amplifier. The music was being handled by me, but ofcourse at that time the computer belonged to my senior who had let me borrow it. For 3 days I would move the computer to the college campus and start off with the music.

Since my college has many students from diverse regions with different languages, this music stall was very tough to handle. I had the usual English songs to play, apart from that the Hindi, Tamil, Telgu, Malyalam and many other kinds of songs were needed. In this particular system, I had varieties of English, Hindi, Arabic, Malyalam, Telgu but by chance I had no Tamil songs. The songs kept playing throughout the day. The worst moments were when I had seniors who were breathing over my neck just to get there songs to be played. That is when I used to get up, give it to them and walk to the food stall to have some food. During that much time they kept themselves quiet busy trying to play some song or the other but could not make up there mind who should take charge of the keyboard and mouse.

During the duration of 3 days in which I was handling the music stall, I had taken assistance of a friend of mine who knew telgu songs as I only knew about English, Hindi and Arabic songs. Those 3 days became really unbearable at points when a few seniors would try using there authority to play there songs. For me, it was important to handle songs in the sequence of requests which were given first come first serve. This sometimes got the situation heated up.

Apart from this was the Last day factor. The last day or 3rd day will always be a weekend so people had a tendency to spend their evenings at the stall for dancing and eating. So we used to keep a playlist which would contain dance numbers. Some of our college authorities never liked the idea as the dance would go on till late night and ofcourse never enjoyed the gender mixing. Those moments remind me the pressure from various people like the management, then the seniors and last but least the crowd which would be in a full groovy mood. After all this, I still remember that I had to take a complete 1-2 days rest just to get all the loud music out of my head. My ears were hurting as i couldnot hear much and then ofcourse I had lost my voice. That experience was really different as I had to try keeping the crowd happy with the different kind of music with different language which is actually a really pain staking work. Now where would one's life be without the fun of handling pain and problems.

IH T-shirts

Today I will talk to you about how the guys in International Hostel (IH), VIT pulled off a T-Shirt for the hostel. I will also be uploading the pics of the T-shirt. When my batch entered final year, we thought of making a souvenir which would remind us the good times we had in college. So the idea was to make a T-shirt with our own customised designs. We expanded this idea of giving the T-shirt to as many of the IH students possible, be it juniors or ex-seniors.

When some of the guys started to work on the designs, we thought that it would get ready in 2-3 weeks time but then everyone got busy with their final year projects. Some of the guys were doing their projects in Bangalore, some in college and other places depending on the company location. Therefore the design kept on getting prolonged and also kept on getting modified from time to time. We eventually came to the conclusion and gave it for manufacturing. The time it took for making the designs was 6 months. Also the final product which we received from the manufactures took 1 month. So the T-shirts came out in July 2005.

We were really thinking of making the base colour of the T-shirt as black but then again in our college many events were organised and everyone had been using the same base colour. So we went for the white base colour and got the T-shirts bleached. The designs were strictly kept as black and blue which really gave a good effect on the white background. The pic on the top is the front of the T-shirt while the one on the side is for the back of the T-shirt.

The T-shirt contains many designs contributed by many of the guys at the hostel. The motto "Cogito Ergo Sum" is Latin which means "I think, therefore I am". This statement has been taken from René Descartes (1596-1650) who was a noted Philosopher, mathematician & scientist. Also the word 'Revellers' was used due to the merry & party nature of the IH guys. In the center we have the alphabets IH printed in Blue. The year when the T-shirt came out is on the left sleeve 'MMV' which is 2005.

The main thing is that this is a great reminder to all of us about the good times we spend in the hostel. The juniors are planning on taking out another new model for the T-shirt, I am sure they will be able to do better. I would like to say thanks to all the people who were able to make this T-shirt come out.

College Fest - RIVIERA

Today I will talk about an event which I had been part of since the time of its starting. In 2001, when I entered college, my seniors were planning on holding an event which would bring the college together. Since every department kept on having their own conferences and symposiums, it was getting difficult to organise as their attention was more towards their departments. But I still respect my seniors as they pulled off this event which has now become a tradition of our college. This event is held every year since January 2002 and has completed its 5th Anniversary in January 2006. Every year it has performed better and flourished over the period of time.

In January 2002, this 3-day event was held between 17th-19th January. Since I was in first year we were not allowed to organise any event, instead we to assist our seniors who were busy organising. The kind of things that needed to be organised were divided into 15 committees. All the committees were overlooked by the main committee known as the organising committee. This contained a few final years which overlooked the working of the entire fest. They were the main mediums between the management, staff and the committees. Since this was the first time, seniors had a hard time but they were able to organise things like sponsors for the event, get the judges for the event, lighting, sounds, bands for the groups etc. For this particular year we invited the group 'Ideas' to perform in our college. The rock concert was not much fun as we were all asked to be seated in chairs which was unbearable for a rock concert. Fireworks was something our seniors had organised and it really lit the night sky and captivated all of us for those 15 minutes.

As for me in Riviera 2002, I was working for the 'guest care and accommodation' committee. I still remember that around 60 first years were part of this group. Our seniors had assured us that there was not much work in this group, but were proven wrong on D-Day as we were suppose to lift pillows and big carpets of sizes 6X2 metres to 1st-2nd floors. All the guys did some of the work and then disappeared for lunch or tea, never to return. By that much time all the things had been kept in their proper rooms. The other things that really made people run away from this group was escorting the guest college teams to their accomodations from the reception area. The distance to cover is usually 1.5 kms and above, this is not much but for a volunteer in first year who has to make couple of trips up & down to escort couple of teams can make anyone runaway. My chance came when everyone was ready for the rock concert and a group of participating guest college team had shown up at that very moment so everyone was reluctant to go towards the hostel side for their accommodations. I donot think it was the tiredness (which by the way was), but mainly the time wasted in going & returning back. I had performed that task and returned in time to sit along with my hostelmates. Another incident was that during the concert we were suppose to sit quietly on our seats and attend it like some lecture. Imagine sitting for a Rock concert. One of my friends sitting next to me was wearing formals due to a prior function he attended. With the music rocking, he just took out his tie and waved it in the air, for this his ID card was seized and was asked to leave the auditorium. I think rest was history with the concert closing down early. Overall the whole fest was successful giving us a good ahead for the next year.

In 2003 (2nd-4th Jan), I was given the same committee, due to prior experience and I think that could have been my downfall. I was never able to lead any other committee due to the experience in guest care & accommodation otherwise also known as 'hospitality' committee. This year I had a senior heading the committee who also was part of it last year. I had another friend of mine tag along with me for the work. We pulled off the event better than the previous year because we had learned our mistakes. We had asked suppliers of the pillows & carpets to dump it in a room on the ground floor of the hostel. Then we decided to dispatch the pillow and carpet to the guest college directly when they are taken to their accomodation. This way we were able to cut down on the work our students had to do. Also each volunteer escorting a team to the hostel was asked to take leave so they could take a breakby going to their rooms. This way only one trip, one way was made by each volunteer. This really cut down on their fatigue level. The interesting part of guest care is that you get to take care of everyone including chief guest, rock groups and other college students. That year for the rock concert the group was David Pascal & group. Unlike the year before this time the concert was held in the Stadium area but the seating arrangements were still valid. The reason for not letting us loose was that we were considered uncontrollable and could not take care of ourselves. The event went on without a hitch.

In 2004 (8th-10thn Jan), I was to head the committee and ofcourse was given the same guest care & accommodation. The only problems I faced during 2003 & 2004 was the lack of first years as our college had given them a semester break exactly at the time of the fest which really made it difficult for us to get hold of them. It was sheer temptation and participation in a major event which made them stay for the fest. Anyways the number of people I used to keep in my committee for assistance used to drop to anywhere between 40-60% during the event as they were busy seeing the other events or had prior engagements. That year for the rock concert we had the group 'Moksha' and also 'Malgudi Suba' for the musical night event. This time during the rock concert the people were able to dance for 10 minutes before the event ended. This was another successful step for the students.

In 2005 (5th-7th Jan), I had taken control of the same committee for the final time as I was in my final year. This time as i was close with the organising committee, I was able to give my experience I had for the past 4 years for the success of the event. I organised the event and as each time had to face some problems but was able to tackle them with time. This year we had to take care of many groups for the event. We had 'Parikrama' for the rock concert with opening bands of 'Yellow' & 'Vinapra' capturing the moment. Also the musical night was amazing with Shankar Mahadevan singing the songs. Ofcourse this time everyone got to dance the entire show without any problems. I guess 4 years of hard work taking each step did pay off. The event was pulled off beautifully.

I did always have a team of few people who really participated by putting there full efforts. I am sure that I could have never pulled off the event without their help. I take this moment to thank them all. Everyone should understand, to pull off any event you have to take help and always you have to respect others who have put their efforts in it.

One lonely vacation

This goes back to 2001 when the college had given 2 weeks vacation in december. I had come back from home after taking 3 weeks holiday from college. Literally the moment I stepped into the hostel, my warden informs me that in another week we were going to have 2 weeks holiday. At first I was taking it as a joke but then again the college had decided to go ahead with the idea due to Chrismas and New Years around the corner. At this point I wanted to strangle someone with a telephone, as somebody could have informed me and I could have postponed my ticket by another 3 weeks.

The week went by in the class with the all time low attendance and then came the 2 week vacation. For the weekend I dropped by in Bangalore to check it out but then again staying 2 days in a lodge in Bangalore was enough so I headed back to the hostel. In the hostel the strength had fallen to less than 10%. All my seniors and my batchmates had left for the holidays, the only ones remaining back was me, myself and a friend. For the next 2 weeks we kept having dinner outside in the town and kept watching TV in the hostel which by the way had a really crap reception. The reception kept coming and going so if we were watching a movie chances of not seeing the climax of the movie was very high.

Christmas came and went then we waited for the New years which was really boring as we didnot do anything interesting except taking complete rest and sleep. In college there was nothing interesting to do as the facilities of internet was not available to students then. Also the library was a no entry zone for me. Unfortunately, at that time I had no computer to spend my time with.

During this time, we had some conference in the college which was being held so the campus didnot feel like a graveyard but pretty good quantity of people were around. Nothing interesting was going on atleast for us to enjoy. By the time the classes had started everyone was back busy preparing for the college fest which was to be held in mid January. That was one time I really enjoyed participating as I was able to help in organising different events.

The only main suggestion I can offer anyone is that they should keep something planned in case you do end up getting holidays, like a getaway plan to Ooty or any kind of hill station or somewhere. Another important thing is to use the internet wisely, keep in touch with people and I still hope the college can update the latest schedule of holidays and classes on the internet which can benefit hundreds of people.

Jet Lags

I was not able to put any new posts on the blog for the past few days as I have been suffering through Jet lag. It's been quite a while since I used to get up early in the mornings. So since I have started attending one of my classes at 7 am, I have to be out of bed by 6 am, so the time change has hit me for the past few days. Mostly I will recover from it by this weekend. Anyways life's going on as usual and I hope to put up couple of posts regarding some issues soon. I can also like some opinion from people about what I should write.

Memories of School Boards

I completed my school in 2001 when I cleared my 12th CBSE boards. I still can remember those couple of months of heavy duty studying for the CBSE boards, not only in 12th but also in 10th. I can still remember my Dad's words "This exam will decide on the future you want". I guess it does in a way, apart from getting in college. It makes us know how much we like a particular subject. In my 11th, I had taken Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry and Maths as my subjects. I did miss History & Geography when I left my 10th as I liked the history of different places and times. Geography was another topic which is interesting as you know which country is capable in what way. But letting Biology go from my hands was not a tough thing as I never like the mugging or cramming of things. The only thing in biology that was interesting was the Human Anatomy.

During the months for preparation of the boards, all the guys used to forget what was happening around us and really hated if a World cup match was coming on TV, either it be Cricket or Football/Soccer. The pre-board exams of my school were pretty tough as they wanted us to score better marks in the boards. It did really help as we used to get -5 or +5 marks in the boards to that of the pre-boards. Also due to these exams we never felt the tension of the Boards and its major importance. We used to be well prepared. The only thing I still can remember is the last exam of the boards when everyone after the exam would crash for partying straight out of the exam hall. Now that is something people have waited for months.

The other day that is of importance after the board is the day when the results are declared. People prayering, stressed out, eagar for their marks but the more effects of these can be seen on the parents who are in worser situation that the kids. The results are out on the internet and also on the notice boards around the country and in every school. Some really happy,other sad, some amazed at their own performance in some subjects and others shocked at the result coming low. Every year when a board result comes out, there has to be some paper in which the corrections are done pretty strictly as that can be seen by the list of marks of students in that subject taking a dive. I have seen great students taking huge falls while in some cases have seen some others having huge leaps through the marks. Even after getting the papers rechecked, there is no changes except for the education industry eating up the recheck money.

Imagine those few exams that we write decide the future for so many people. It is one sad thing as fate can play astonishing games. The worst is current senario where due to the importance of this exam, I have heard of people Suiciding only because of slight bad performance in this exam. The level of importance given for this paper by society, parents, teachers and friends can make a person stress out at that age of 15-18. The amount of stuff to be learned keeps on increasing for each year. The worst is still the weight of books that kids nowadays have to take from Kindergarden onwards till 12th. With so much technology we still have to carry heavy bags filled with books. These antomatically are tickets to health problems. Everything should be to a limit and should be taken care off. I am not criticising any particular system. Just that the system needs to be improved.

Another thing is the pattern of exam we write. In the Indian system of exams, we are habituated of writing answers to each question in an essay style or to the point. We should also be given some points in school itself on how to tackle other patterns of question papers like GRE, TOEFL, SAT etc. I mean the objective kind of questions and other things. We should be slightly given preparation to tackle other kind of techniques. That can be a major help. Also the system should be improved to help students and make them attract studies by different ways like using audio-video presentations. Hope the future has better things instore for the coming generations.

Back-benchers to teaching

This is the beginning of another weekend and today words seem to be distant from me. So I plan to pick something from my past which might interest some. Since I can remember, the back bench of my class always was meant for me. I clearly carried out my tradition of being a back bencher in college and also currently in my institute. But in school, the teachers had come up with an idea which was the rotation technique. They purposely tried to keep 5-6 rows of benches so that the students don't go farther away from the staff standing at the front of the class. Also they kept making each row rotate to the next while the back benchers come to the forward row. This idea was very successful but since always students have tried out-smarting the teachers and have come up with awesome ideas. To escape this the back benchers started sitting on the last bench on that day of the week when class time-tables used to be heavy with no breaks. While the lighter days of the week with labs and extra curricular activities used to lead us to sit on the 1st or 2nd rows. That ofcourse solved some of the problems. In college, as long as you make no problems on the last bench by disturbing the staff, you will remain King of the back bench.

The only lose of being a back bencher is that you have to work on your grades better than anything as one tends to not listen in classes. Either be regular in studies and stay ahead of the staff teaching you or else pay attention sitting on the last bench which is amazing if you can attain that goal. In college, some staffs' teaching used to be captivating enough for people to listen to their lectures. This is where I can say a quote (origin of saying not known), "Top students or Geniuses don't make good teachers, love for teaching or imparting knowledge in an interesting manner can conquer all the students". This is a fact which can be seen even today. I have seen my friends who can make you understand a topic in 10-15 minutes while a staff has tried to get that same topic in your head in 1-2 hours class but in vain. Teaching is all about Passion.

Teaching is one of the most respectful careers as you help mould thousands of life but the problem comes with the idea that teachers are not paid very well. Therefore many never choose this as a career option. Worst is that even the ones who choose donot take it seriously. 3 people in this world can mould a child at a young age to anything from Good to Evil. They are the child's Mother, Father and Teacher. The responsibility is huge, but very less have been successful. I still remember the name of the staffs who have taught me from school as they are people who you cannot forget as they devoted their attention without any selfish reasons. I still pay my respects to all of them whenever I am at home. Noone realises thing in this world until its late.

About my certification courses

I am currently studying at Indian Institute of Hardware Technology (IIHT) in Bangalore. I have been completing courses like MCSE - Microsoft Certified System Engineer, CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Associate, Sun Solaris Administrator, Comptia N+ , Ret Hat Linux Administrator and finally with Oracle DBA course. Usually people go along with 2-3 selections. When I was attending , I wanted a strong background in Networks and its Administration. Most of the courses provide me with an opportunity in different platforms. Taking Oracle DBA was more as I wanted to know Database Administration also as System Administrator it is necessary to have a knowledge of most things. The only thing left is all the exams I have to appear after completing my courses at the institute.

When I was doing my 4 year Computer Engineering at the University, I thought it will be really into computers guessing about Software and Hardware. I learned more Hardware on my own with the help of my friends who taught me how to take apart a whole computer CPU and assemble the whole package. Apart from all that I was also able to learn in the hostel about networking with other computers creating our own small LAN network which by the way was destroyed into many pieces by the college authorities without prior warning. Reason for destroying the network was not a sufficient one, even proof was not shown. In the end an apology from the college authorities was given without any compensation on the 300 meters of LAN wire that was destroyed as multiple cuts were made throughout the wire. That's life, isn't it.

The Hardware part which was going to be taught in the college was cancelled in the second last semester and we were asked to attend another computer language lab. So finally in my batch I had people who had no idea what a RAM or a Motherboard or Hard Disk looked like. In a college, computer science engineering basically means Software Engineering. (PERIOD). The amount of Languages they teach is for the IT industries. This is where I kept trying to make out what is the difference between Computer Science Engineers and Information Technology Engineers as both branches are taught side by side. Apart from these branch all the other basic branches of engineering are having scope in the IT industry. I saw more than 500 people be selected by the IT companies and maximum out of them 200-250 were from the IT and computer background only (including B.Tech CSE, IT, MCA, M.Tech CSE etc). So finally every kind of branch people are being accomodated in the IT industry. What will happen if they think of going to their core companies. They will be having Nil experience related to the core field. There will come one such time.....

Something about myself

Its been quiet a while since I wrote a post on the blog. My Internet connection was down for sometime due to some fault on the Optic Fiber cable line. Anyways I am back now and thought it is better to talk about myself first before all the incidents that took place in my life. I am currently 23 and still studying. I have graduated in Computer Science Engineering branch from Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT). So currently I am studying some certification courses like Microsoft Certified System Engineering (MCSE), Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) and some others. Sounds easy but after all the course that I am studying at Indian Institute of Hardware Technology (IIHT), I have to appear for these certification exams which usually end up have passing or clearance marks anywhere from 65% to 80%.

I have spend 14 years in clearing through school and then high school. After that I spend another 4 years to graduate from a technical university. Now I have been completing this for the past few months. Looks like my studying spree will continue for sometime. I plan to take up a job for sometime and continue with it for some experience. Once I feel in the next few years that its time then I can go on to finish my Higher graduation. I used to think that I should master in my field making me more technically sound like mastering in Networking or Computer Sciences, but during my time in college my classmates and staff have suggested me on doing MBA. I kept thinking since every person on earth is currently finishing up with a Bachelors degree is doing it that is why I am being suggested but the main reason is due the interest I show in Management handlings. Anyways I guess the future will tell me about it.

All my classmates are getting settled with a job somewhere or other. I am still glad that they are in touch with me and also their calls keep coming. I duly ask for forgiveness sometimes for not calling them on a regular basis. Most of them have ended up with great jobs, mostly Information Technology sector. I am sure they will thrive a lot in their jobs and knowledge. Actually just a day or two back I received an invitation to one of my friends Engagement which is being held in the next few days. Looks like some are planning on tying a knot, hope the best for their future.