Talking Talking

keen observations of life

Sanny Macsy

Jul 3

Posted by Rajat in Personal, Thoughts

Peeves the Poltergeist :

Oh Sanny Macsy! Sanny Sanny Macsy!

Teaching Maths Fancy and giggling like batsy!

Ever since I have dreamt of enrolling for a particular course from a particular pedigreed institution, I have dreamt of joining a particular institute located at a particular place in Delhi – only because of its particular reputation!

One of the particular reasons why I want to enroll for that particular course is that I want to do a particular kind of job for some years as a start up for my career. After that, I have thought of engaging in a particular kind of activity to satisfy me, both creatively and on financial grounds.

Again, one of the particular reasons why I have chosen that particular institute to join because I want to do my best under the best possible guidance, so that my chances of coming through that particular pedigreed institution become very high.

See, I’m such a particular person!

That particular institute is known as SANMACS; that particular place in Delhi is Karol Bagh. As far as that particular pedigreed institution is concerned, I ain’t telling you yet… Nazar lag jaayegi naa..!

As many of you might have noticed, the title of the post is a satirical variation of the name of the particular institute. Exactly what the intended satire is, I can’t tell you – because I have failed to notice it. If you do, please tell me, will you?

About SAMNACS, then.

Apart from located in Karol Bagh, which happens to be in the list of my favorite places in Delhi, SANMACS is the premier institute of MCA entrance coaching in India. (See, you got to know about that particular course too!).

SANMACS (as it claims), is responsible for sending a majority of students to a majority of pedigreed institutions offering MCA in India. Maybe because of that, I joined the institute five days ago. (I don’t want to miss out on my chances, you see!). Alas! For me, it is back to studies then. I enjoyed just 33 days of my precious holidays being busy in inefficient and unproductive somethings, which should be a World Record to say the least. (I’m known to waste an entire year in useless babble). With SANMACS, I’m back to finding out about of the chances of Q being S if some P’s are Q’s, and finding out the correct time after 23999999992 hours from now, and worrying about the wizard who lost his shoes while taking a dump. (Okay, I made the last one up!)

As far as my routine goes, the day starts pretty early, considering the fact that I have to wrestle with a sweaty crowd that greets me inside metro each morning as I make the short commute to that particular place in Delhi, and that I have to find time to read, write, listen, walk, study, and teach all at once. Teaching is over for now, and it does make the list considerably shorter. Yet, there are a hell lot of things to do. Sometimes I am amazed when I notice the fact that I always end up making myself terribly busy while being pathetically unproductive.

See you guys later.

PS : I know I shouldn’t have written that horrendous piece of verse above. But ever since I’ve read A Suitable Boy, I cannot help treating various situations with kakoli couplets, and the above one is by far the best I’ve been able to do! Hope you didn’t mind… :)

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Pirates of the Facebook!

Jun 26

Posted by Rajat in Humour, Web

Pirates

What do Facebook and Pirates have in common? The language!

I discovered this feature quite a while ago. It so happened that I was trying to pass some time by browsing web pages at random – about.com, howstuffworks, cnn.com and the likes. At that moment, I came across a wikipedia article on facebook features, and found out an easter egg!

You can change the default language of facebook to be English (Pirate), and ye scullywags’ll be speakin the tongue in a grain ‘o sand! See:

Facebook Language

Even if you aren’t a Pirates fan, you can try out the application for the fun of it! Just notice how familiar things change when speaking pirate lingo:

fb-topbar

Here, Home becomes Home Port, Profile becomes Me, Friends > Me Hearties, and Inbox > Bottle o’ Messages :)

Look at some more screenshots:

fb-searchbar

fb-chat

fb-status

fb-footer

In the last screenshot, Pocket Parrot stands for Mobile Device! :D

I suggest that you give that pirate a try! Furthermore, I can be found on facebook at http://facebook.com/rajatarora.info/. Befriend me!

Ah, btw… If you are wondering what an easter egg is, find out all about them here.

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A series of shorties

Jun 19

Posted by Rajat in Thoughts

These days, I’m not able to think of a full-post-worthy topic to write about. But I do have a lot of blurb-worthy-only thoughts that play trampoline inside my seemingly small head. Hence, I present to you, a series of shorties:

Of jQuery and related

Contrary to my belief, jQuery is very easy to learn and implement. And to top that, it has a bubbling online community filled with people who are more than willing to help. In fact, most of such Open Source Projects have similar communities, including Linux. This presents a welcome change from the oh-so-snorty college authorities who are a real headache to deal with. I wonder why Microsoft is still making money? :P

The Cat and the Baby

The other day I was watching Amazing Baby Videos on Discovery. They were showing some really  humourous videos about babies and pets. But they were really thought-provoking. For instance, in a particular video, the pet cat wasn’t so happy about the presence of the baby in the household, so she occupies his toy chair as an act of revenge. When the baby approaches, she catches hold of his sleeve (thankfully she only gets hold of the shirt!).

Funny, eh? Apparently not. Even the host of the show felt so. Just like elder siblings, even pets need to be prepared for the young one’s arrival. If handled incorrectly, they can even harm the baby!

Of Reading and Writing

A Suitable Boy is turning better by the page (though I agree that the numerous procedures of law sprinkled all over it are a pain in the a** to read!). I’ve even started to identify with one of the characters in the book… Funny, eh? Plus the Chatterji family, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, Maan and Malati make reading the book quite enjoyable!

And I’ve been wanting to write a piece of fiction these days. But the problem is that most of the themes that occur to me invariably contain blood and gore – about which I don’t want to write. The only short story I’ve ever written, Sikandar, was along similar lines… dealing with a bomb blast in Delhi. Perhaps that’s why I’m unwilling to touch on that subject again.

Also, speaking of Sikandar, I’ll publish it here very soon. Its been long overdue!

Everything Else

Piano Lessons? Going good. Movie Watching? Atleast one everyday. TV? Not much. World Cup? Didn’t watch a single match. Roaming around? Next to none. Delhi’s heat? Untolerable. College? I’m better away from it. Love life? Still single! :(

Guess I’ll leave it at that!

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Laziness

Jun 17

Posted by Rajat in Personal

I’ve just spent the laziest day of these holidays. And no, I’m not happy!!

Today, I I woke up late. Didn’t practice my piano lessons. Didn’t read A Suitable Boy. Then I took a longish nap in the afternoon!!! I didn’t start developing the theme for this blog. Gave a very very very late reply to Prabhjot’s technical questions. Didn’t help mom when she wanted to look up something on the internet.

In short, I didn’t do anything.

I am dreading the day when my sanmacs classes start. Then I’ll have to go there, study, AND do all the stuff mentioned above. I need to be more productive. Immensely more productive.

Shit!!

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Updates Ahoy

Jun 11

Posted by Rajat in Books, Personal

updates

It will be a while before I get the hang of regular blogging all over again. Remaining out of action for extended periods of time does have its own set of problems, you see!

Wordpress 2.8 has been released. I’ve upgraded. I guess you should do that too.

My piano classes are going great! I’ve learnt the C-Major, and now I can play an oversimplified version of Hickory Dickory Dock with conviction! In tomorrow’s class, I’ll learn the F-Major. Lets see what’s in store for me. :)

People (read: Meeta Ma’am) were pestering Mohna to start a blog. She was unwilling. So I decided to take the initiative. I registered a blog for her. And now, our (read: Me and Meeta Ma’am) job is to cajole her to actually write something. She’s a bright girl. I believe she’ll come up with something interesting. Will keep you posted.

I’ve noticed that when I stop doing something, it becomes very hard for me to come back to it. About writing blog posts you already know. But you don’t know about reading them. Ever since I broke the vow of internet-celibacy (I took it due to the exams, you know), I haven’t brought myself to read Ritu’s and Freya’s blogs again. I don’t know why… but that’s the case. These two were the only ones I used to read with some gusto. Sorry guys, I’m working towards making myself click those links! Its not that I ain’t reading any blogs. The other day I was browsing IndiBlogger to look for some new, interesting ones. And I did get myself into reading some of them. But that’s about it. My old reading habits are destroyed.

Speaking of reading habits, I am currently reading A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. For those who know about it, don’t wince. For those who don’t, it is the sixth longest english novel ever – running for almost 1400 pages. I’ve reached the halfway mark in about 10 days. According to Meeta Ma’am (who has apparently read the whole thing), it is slow and dull. According to me, it is mildly interesting. I got it from the library.

Next up in my reading list is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. I bought it from Om Book Shop. They are running a sale these days, with discounts ranging from 10-90%. This book is marked at 15%. The full set of Lord of the Rings is marked at 82%. Some obscure cookbook by some obscure author containing some obscure recipes is actually marked at 90%. You get the picture. The bestsellers are still expensive. The rest come cheap. The store has got a very good collection, though.

As you might have noticed, I have implemented IntenseDebate comments in Talking Talking. Happy Commenting! I’ve never liked Disqus, or WordPress’s very own commenting system.

These days, I’m watching a lot of things. Heroes, Prison Break, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, American Pie, Star Wars, Aliens, X-Men – you get the picture. Its my way of enjoying the holidays.

And I’m learning PHP too! But I guess more on that later.

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