Transience of Plans...

I have always said this, that I am afraid to anticipate something happening for fear that it wont. My life is riddled with examples of the sort which seem to prove the proverb "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip". So much so that I think it should be my catchphrase or moniker. If you have gone through my blog, you will find numerous quotes by me about the aforementioned curse, if you will. I have always tried to not anticipate good times coming to me, because they don’t, most of the time. I am not saying that I have a miserable life, that is far from true, but most of the time, what I desire is not what I get, and most of the time, it is not because I didn’t try.

I, like all others, find it extremely easy to give the cheapest and most abundant thing on the planet, that is free advice. I advised my cousin, who has been having similar problems, that it is enough that you try, it doesn't matter if you don’t come first, and the like. I try to live by such a philosophy too, but sometimes…it just doesn’t seem to work.

"You've got your rules and your religion,

All designed to keep you safe…

But when rules start getting broken,

You start questioning your faith…"

( Randy Orton's theme song "Voices")

I have in turn got a lot of advices from a lot of people on the same, consoling me, that I did everything I could, it just wasn’t in my hands, its not my fault and the like, but I'd like to quote from Dr. House from House M.D.

"THAT'S THE POINT!! I did everything right, she died anyway! Why the hell do you think that would make me feel any better?!"

Well, what can I say, I just felt I had to let this out somehow.

Plans are one of the most curious things in the world. The way they change, implode right in front of our eyes, and leave us feeling let down, it all leads us to think, what is going on? We have been taught right from the start, that we need to plan every minute of our lives, every step that we take and all the choices that we make have to be planned beforehand. We have been exposed to the proverb saying 'People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan'. We are made to believe that a plan alone can be the key to success. And yet most often in life, we have a plan, we strictly abide by it and prepare for our moment of success, when all of a sudden our plans go horribly wrong. Suddenly, it's out of our hands. We did everything we could and infinitely more, and yet we could not seal the deal. How is it that we are supposed to feel good, knowing that we did our best?

Perhaps it is time to review what we teach children nowadays. Perhaps we shouldn’t teach them all of this, or at least teach them this also.

"Just because you did everything right doesn’t mean you get what you want. It just means you have a 1% chance of getting it more than others, and that 1% is most of the time non-existent".

I know it's not a big deal…but that's me...

It's raining it's pouring...

It's raining on and off here, but who is complaining? I love the rain, provided it doesn't mess with what I want, but that is besides the point. A rumble of thunder just rose, that is a side effect which some fear, but I have no problem with thunder or lightning. I am not scared of them, and I repeat, I love the rain.

You know the smell when the first raindrops land on the ground, the parched land quickly drinks up the elixir and waits longingly for more, which it ultimately receives, you know that smell I'm talking about? That is one of the most heavenly smells in this whole wide world, and that is what I am taking in right now. Oh, this is one of those moments when words cannot express that feeling, you've got to feel it to experience the magic.

You feel a definite relief from the scorching heat, as the cool winds gently whip your face. That wind jolts you to the sudden awareness that nature holds the key to everything. Just look outside your window, watch the raindrops fall, feel the cool air, and you forget all your cares, worries and frustrations. It fills you with a deep joy and energizes you , and is it any wonder that you can work for hours on end and rarely get tired on a rainy day? Of course, one of the best parts is waking up on a rainy morning. The alarm goes off, but you are snuggled comfily under your blanket, you'd rather die that get up, you turn off the alarm and continue snuggling, it’s a feeling that can't be described…

And best of them all, it's the many memories that spring up in the back of my head when I think about rain. Rewind around 10 years, I used to watch it rain, hell, i used to wait for the rain to fill up our coutyard, and my cousin and I would make loads of paper boats and lauch them in the water...Ahoy,sailor!!!

Rewind around 5 years, the first time my cousins and I went to a hotel by ourselves to eat biriyani, it was raining cats and dogs then, and we reached home all drenched!!

I know I am rambling...so I'll leave it at that...Maybe more later...

Discrete What???

3 down, and three to go. that's the state of my exams right now. Today I had to endure a torturous bout with discrete structures. I went into the exam hall with my mind buzzing with all the conditions a group must satisfy to be abelian or a ring and the like. And my friends asked me the question I've learnt not to ask anymore-"What's the point of all this?"
And after I received the question paper, I was like "This is it?" . No, no,no it was not that it was easy. It was just that nothing made sense. A question which could only be answered in 3 lines was worth 4 marks. And a single truth table with 8 rows and around 8 columns was worth 10! I mean, what is the logic in all this? And I made my usual set of mistakes. Its back. Yeah. Its been gone for nearly a year and half, but now it is officially back. I am talking about the answer-right-then-cut syndrome that has plagued me for so long...I always write the first answer that pops into my mind, and stick with it, until it is dis-proven logically. On those rare occasions when I don't know an answer or have got a lot of guesses about it, I usually get beaten by this syndrome. Almost always I write the correct answer and then strike it off and replace it with a wrong one. I had no idea what a strongly connected graph was and I ended up writing the correct definition, then cut it, and wrote the wrong one!!!
Well on the whole a "not bad" exam. That's 3 down and 3 to go!!!

FYI: Discrete structures is a maths like subject useful for computer students. You learn about logic, sets and algebra in that.

Cross Roads...

How was it when you were a teen? When you had entered college? Did you have a very clear picture of where you wanted to be in a couple of year's time? And did you give it your all to make that dram of yours come true? And did it?

Please don't think I start each and every one of my posts accusing each and every one of you, as if you are always wrong and I am always right. It's nothing like that. It's just that, if you answered each of the above questions with a decisive "Yes", then I'd definitely like to hear from you.

The thing is, I have no idea what I want to do in life, or even what kind of job I want to have. Nothing. I've been asked to develop that idea since I was in 12th, and I couldn't and even now, I can't. There is nothing that sticks out. Every idea has its pros and cons, but if I genuinely love an idea I'll do anything I have to  get to it, but the thing is, nothing really makes me feel excited.

There are two options for me. Either I can accept a job after I graduate from college, or I can go for higher studies.

And this is where the deadlock is.

Option 1: The job I get is inevitably one in the IT sector. And one of the trademarks of the sector is its nerve wrecking hours of work. I may have to work for hours on end, and leave me no time for family, but at the end of the day I'll get a huge paycheck.

Option 2: I can go for higher studies but the dilemma still remains. Another thought that rests in the back of my head is whether or not I should enter the teaching profession. I don’t know how many of you know this, I have taught a lot of people. My first "students" were my mother and father, I taught my cousin and a couple of others from school. It is one of the few things that I love to do. The salary will be admittedly lower, but I'll get time to spend with my family and relax, no deadlines, no tension and the like.

Just think of Steve Borden (Sting). The only reason he declined the big fat paycheck from WWE and signed up for TNA was because he cared for his family. He now does not have the incessant travels, and he is respected in the locker room. Ultimately, he made the right choice for himself.

I'd like to conclude with a quote from the movie "Dan in Real Life":

" Dear Readers, for most of you, this is my first column in your paper. In the future, I will be answering your questions, but today I want to break from my usual format and talk to you about the subject of plans. Not so much my plan for this column, but life plans, and how we all make them. And how we hope that our kids make good, smart, safe plans of their own. But if we're really honest with ourselves, our plans usually don't work out as we had hoped. So instead of asking our young people "What are you plans? What do you plan to do with your life?" maybe we should tell them this: Plan to be surprised."

Integrals, Fourier Series, Transforms...Someone Save Me!!!

ALERT: THIS POST IS MEANT FOR ADULT READING ONLY! IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 17 PLEASE GET YOUR PARENT NEARBY. YOU WONT UNDERSTAND A WORD OF WHAT IS WRITTEN HERE OTHERWISE!!!!
                                            YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!


My exams started today, and the first one was maths. Cant say I messed it up, I did pretty alright, but I've got to say this.
About one hour into the exams, my head jammed. All I could make out was a fuzzy noise. It is uncommon for me to be dazed in an exam hall, but as it happens, maths is not one of my strong points, it is, if you will, my Achilles' Heel. Its not that I score bad in maths, not at all, but the thing is, I hate it.
I don't know, I never had such a reaction back in school, till 12th. And in 12th, I saw my nemesis, and it is called Integration. I could never get a hang on it, and I wrote my board exams and entrance without fully knowing it. And whenever I came across a question on it in entrance, I'd simply skip it. And as time passed, I began to resent and dread that elongated 'S' shape whenever I see it.
And came college. I could solve one integral with difficulty, now I was expected to solve double and triple integrals. And it really came to a head this semester.
That is what brings me to today's exam . The exam was littered with those long curves that I have grown to dread. And there was Fourier transform and the like, littered with integrals as usual, and coupled with limits and coefficients. Is it from 0 to pi? Or -pi to +pi? Or was it 0 to 2pi? Was the coefficient 1/pi or its root? The questions were endless and it was with a grat relief that I left the hall.
And what's more???This is not done....I have to deal with this and more next semester...Somebody Save Me!!!!!

I am Back.............

I thought of throwing in the towel, and I actually did, for a couple of days. I deactivated my FB account due to God knows what and wrote my farewell message on my blog. Maybe I thought these things were not worth it. But the last couple of days were extremely rushed,  I was in an extremely bad mood and I made these hasty decisions. And indeed, haste makes waste.

On retrospection of these on-the-spur decisions, I realised that that was not what I intended to do at all. I had lost control of the pace at which my life was leading me, that I wanted to do something to prove to myself, to assure myself, that I had not lost control completely. These actions were meant to console me, and to make me feel as if  I still had control over a couple of decisions. But the fact is, my blog is one of the few things worth living for.

I am back to normal now. My exams are upon me, so I will be using blogger with care. Maybe a post here, a post there, but nothing at the expense of my studies. Because I worked all my life to get to the top, and I am not ready to flush it all down the toilet for absolutely anything in the world. It is what I live for and breathe for. It is what keeps my heart beating.

I could remove my earlier post, but I am not doing that. I want to keep it as a testimony of my insanity.

Thank God you saved me from the rut.

I am back and I am never going back again.

Laus Deo.

Thinking of hanging it up...

There comes a time in all of our lives that we begin to doubt everything we've done. Every step that we took, all the choices that we made are called to question. It is one of the most deabilitating moments in one's life when we realize that what we considered our greatest accomplishments were never accolades, but illusions in our head. The dubious concept that we are the sun around which the planets revolve, that we happen to be the chosen one, the prodigy, these are beliefs that were shattered more than once for me. But so deep rooted are these beliefs, and such egotistical am I that these do not seem to be uprooted.
How many of us had blown out images of ourselves? How many of us considered ourselves to be invincible? How many of us have watched our dreams being trampled right in front of our eyes? How many of us were too serious and missed out on life's good days only to realize that you've earned nothing? And how many of us strolled around in a happy-go-lucky way only to find ourselves stuck up where we never pictured ourselves?
That is the irony that is life.
And I have been a victim to it. I spent the first years of my life, trying to outdo everybody, and I thought I did. I thought after all this, I can relax, and I can enjoy. But now it has finally dawned on me that all of that is just imaginary, the only thing that is real is me and the fact that there is no going back. You cannot go back to the days when you could have enjoyed but didnt.
And it is at times like this that I feel I should hang it all up. Nobody cares about this blog, nobody reads this stuff, and I seem to be doing a losy job at managing my own life.
This is not goodbye for ever. This is just goodbye for now. When the time is right, I will return (being the most egotistical guy on the planet, who refuses to accept failure).
Until then,
Yours truly, Amit Praseed.
Ours truly, this life.
(Jeff Hardy's final words on WWE)