1. When the project/assignment is first announced in class, lick your lips and rub your hands together while you imagine yourself doing a fantastic job. Who’s going to top this submission? You are!
2. A couple of weeks later, get reminded by the reminder on your Windows Calendar (or Outlook or Google Tasks…whatever floats your boat) about the submission you have forgotten.
3. Spend a few minutes (or hours, depending on your mental constitution) still thinking about all the ways in which you’re going to make your submission fantastic. After all, you ARE in XLRI! It has to be top-notch.
4. One week before submission, start actually doing the project. Spend two hours writing one paragraph, and then re-writing it, and then weighing the importance of each word and how well it fits into each sentence. Philosophise the perfectness of your writing.
5. One day before submission deadline, write 6 paragraphs while constantly shaking your head in disagreement with the quality of the work. Say a silent prayer asking for inspiration to do well.
6. 6 hours before deadline, start working furiously. Quality is ALMOST secondary at this point.
7. 1 hour before deadline…screw the quality. Just do something because some sh*t is better than nothing. You end up writing 7 pages in 45 minutes.

And life goes on.

This post is published simultaneously on facebook and my blog “Thought Overflow”. If you haven’t checked out my blog yet, check it out now!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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• Companies have Upper Cutoffs as well as Lower Cutoffs in their written tests. To be honest, I don’t think this is true. Why would a company have a higher cut-off? Why would they want to deny themselves of the cream of students who appear for the candidacy for their job offerings? Someone once said that most people come up with the explanation of “upper cutoffs” because they can’t deal with the fact that they didn’t clear the “lower” cutoffs. To be honest, I don’t know what’s true. If I ever get into the HR Department of a company, I’ll be sure to let you know, though.
• The more additional sheets you take, the more marks you score. I don’t think this is true either. If at all anything, it acts as a placebo. Yes, there may be some few cases where a very lazy examiner may give marks to a paper that seems to be “heavier” (physically) than most others, but in general, I think we get the marks we deserve. The third year, first semester was one in which I had developed an intimate relationship with most subjects and enjoyed them. I scored higher than almost everyone that sem. This last sem, I disliked most subjects and never knew developed anything more than a polite acquaintancy with them. Having said that however, I seek not to undermine the importance of presentation in a paper. The neater you write, and the cleaner your diagrams, the more marks you are likely to fetch. Your paper’s evaluator may be in a bad mood, but a neat paper certainly does make its own impression.
• You get selected in companies if you don’t read for them. This is not a very common myth. In fact, I was just told this by a friend of mine who just came online who claims that Infosys is “that kind of company” in which you’ll never be selected if you prepare for it. I don’t see how this is possible. Perhaps a lot of students who “prepared” didn’t get selected but felt that others, who didn’t quite “prepare” as much as them, did. Again, it’s a case of sour grapes. Logically, I can’t see how preparation can harm your chances of success. Without preparation, all you have on your side is hope and luck. Be reasonable, people, and use some of that common sense that God gave you.
• I am not an alien, and my future plans do not include total domination by revolutionalizing the way people watch TV. I guarantee you that this is a myth. It is also the reason why I don’t discourage people from watching too much TV (you can never watch too much TV!) and listening to (c)rap songs (u can neva lisn 2 enuff hip-hop, dog!).

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Here’s how I think Hathway Internet Services sorts out (or attempts to sort out) technical issues based on their customers’ complaints:

1. Day one consists of assuring the customer that they are aware of the problem. They probably hold straws or pick chits to decide what excuse to use and then convince the caller that everything will be working again in a few hours. I spoke to one Venkatesh who told me that there’s a problem in this entire area and that the problem wasn’t limited to just my connection, so they’re working extra hard on it.
2. On day two, the problem still hasn’t even been found. However, by this time, the call center executives have pulled their phones off the hook and are chatting with each other, probably praying that some miracle will cause everyone’s internet to start working all by itself.
3. On day three, someone makes a comment that maybe they ought to get someone from the Hathway Internet Services technical department to take a look at the problem.
4. On day four, I get through to them by pretending to NOT be an existing customer of Hathway. (When you call their call center, you are asked to press 1 if you are a Hathway customer… on day four, I pressed 2 instead). I speak to someone else who says that by now, the problem in my area should have been resolved. I give him a piece of my mind and ask him to tell Venkatesh that he’s an idiot.
5. Day five… HALLELUJAH! Someone from the Hathway Internet Services technical department shows up at home to fix the problem and finds the internet working!

I’ve been wanting to change my ISP for quite some time now. BNSL DataOne has a much better tariff plan and appears to be much more reliable as well. This is not the first time I’ve had a multiple day problem with Hathway. The last time, I gave a poor lady a piece of my mind on Day two itself (or was it day three), but that didn’t quite help then. Oh well.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Dear facebookers, orkutters and just about anybody else who is sad enough to wear such a tag with pride,

• Thank you for inviting me to join a million social networking websites. I know that unless I have the same people on my friends’ list on a few hundred social networking websites, they don’t count as friends, irrespective of whether we hang out everyday or not.
• Thank you for making me feel unique when you send me heart-warming greetings every now and then. I used to make it a point to reply to every nice scrap I got till I got confused by the “CLICK HERE TO SCRAP ALL YOUR FRIENDS AT ONCE” link at the bottom of your messages.
• Thank you for inviting me to join your communities 47 times. I know I didn’t accept your invitation the first 46 times, but now I realize how important your community is to me, and how much it would enhance my life.
• And while we’re at it, I would also like to thank all sorts of social networking websites that have made it so easy to sign up. I KNOW I don’t remember ever signing up for gazzag.com, yet I got plenty of mails that people have been sending me Private Messages. Out of curiosity one day, I clicked the link in one of them, and lo and behold! Turns out I did have an account there after all!
  (Actually, no, turns out this particular website makes it so easy to sign up that the moment you click on the link in their email, it creates an account for you!)

In celebration of social networking sites, I’ve decided to dedicate this day of my life to them! Three cheers for facezagkut!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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This is a post.

Bask away.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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This post was supposed to be about the word “numb-skull”. I was going to contemplate on how the word could possibly have been devised. The two obvious parts are of course numb and skull. Taking skull to mean head, one would assume that the skull has become numb because of being hit repeatedly with the same data, and still not registering it. Alternately, a numb skull could also imply a skull that’s numb and devoid of feeling or thought, thus making it… numb!. But since the damn word is numskull and not numbskull, I’ll just leave you with the supposedly official origin of the name:

1717, from num (see numb) + skull. Numskulled (adj.) is attested from 1706.

Hey, what do you know! I was right all along!

Anyway, I leave you now to ponder over why I would make an entire post about a word… specifically, the word “numbskull”. There are a multitude of possibilities, of course, ranging from an unpleasant encounter with an idiot to a heated debate with an imbecile. Think about it.

Also, I must confess that the thought that seems to be making my head numb is the thought of impending doom – examination results are going to be announced shortly … skull numb with fear.

To those of you thinking really hard over what prompted me to make an entry about “numbskull”, the answer is really much simpler than unpleasant encounters and antagonizing debates… I’m simply a random guy!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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I’m going to write about 2 things today (what is my fixation with that number? I always have 2 points to make, or 2 questions to ask, or 2… nevermind):

1. I’m thinking whether the frequency of my posting would have any impact on the quality of my posting. If I am forced to post too often, I might be reduced to making this blog more of an online journal rather than a weblog (wait… what’s the definition of “weblog” again?).

   I can assure you that not too many people are interested in reading your journal, unless you’re:

   1. a ghostbuster
   2. a firefighter
   3. a complete weirdo
   4. leaking celebrity secrets (Angeline Jolie’s next kid is going to have a “Made in Africa” tattoo on its butt)
   5. Garfield
2. I need to figure out how to block people from my MSN list in a fool-proof manner. Yunheng is smart.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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This leaves me wondering (ok, seriously, no it doesn’t, but “leaves me wondering” is a nice phrase to use) whether the change in the look is going to change the experience. I don’t think so (hence, the fact that it doesn’t leave me wondering), because no matter what happens, you will still have the following on orkut:

• People using scrapbooks to send each other messages, and messages to send each other scraps/forwards.
• Testimonials from friends which insult you and do more damage to your reputation than add to it. For example -
  

  awrite buddy here u go
  crazy nut head,freakin douchebag,crapy taste in music…superly gay ( as he supports Man U) and still has the balls to argue with me..thats why i think hed make a gr8 lawyer…but he basically sucks monkey ass…totally jobless ud never c him with his books but still manages to get a 75% in his finals xams..uninteresting part removed by Gurdit…suffers from an inferiority complex for some reason..weirdo.. but at times he thinks he zinadine zidane
  p.s. hes the son of one of the most influencial man in hytherbad thats why this testimonial otherwise hes not even worth my time..haha..

  Thanks, “buddy”. As the extremely cliched adage goes : With friends like you, who needs enemies?

• Invitations to join a thousand communities, all of which are “unique”, yet have the same forum games
  

  k, if u r a boy, add 2. if u r a gal, minus 2. v’ll start @ 50, letz c wether v gt 2 0 1st or 100!!! LOLZZ!!

• “hi” followed by a hundred exclamation marks. (This one scares me, so I’ll avoid demonstrating it here)
• People you know being online either on your Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger or G Talk, and still “chatting” with you through scraps.
• 7 new messages everytime you log in, 5 of which are for some poor guy or girl in the hospital whose bill value is going to be reduced by 0.50$ every time you forward the message to someone***… that guy/girl must be a billionaire by now.

(...)
Read the rest of On Orkut (341 words)

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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• Electrical Technology : Originally, this subject was a pain in the arse, primarily because the teacher didn’t do a fine job teaching. However, it’s more or less an easy subject. Thankfully, I’ve got a fantastic textbook for it, and am hoping to do well in it. I’d be disappointed if I got less than 80% for this one.
• OOPS through JAVA : We didn’t have a lecturer for about the first month. We finally got one, and he turned out to be soft-spoken (read : the class played with him like one plays with a mute cat). Anyway, it’s a computer programming language, meaning it should be up my sleeve! However, we only get one day to prepare for me, so that’s making me a tad bit nervous. Hopefully, around 85% here.
• Switching Theory and Logic Design : Our seniors and other faculty members told me that it’s easy to score (marks, that is) in this subject. However, I find it a little confusing. Also, I didn’t particularly like our lecturer… she should perhaps have concentrated more on what she was teaching than on telling us about our mannerisms and what else is wrong with our generation… no harm, though, she was probably just trying to help. Preparation for this subject : If her notes are enough, I’m good. If not, I’m going down . This basically means that either I’m going to get >85 or <75
• ElectroMagnetic Waves and Transmission Lines : Every semester, there’s at least one subject with which I share a hate-hate relationship. This semester, it’s EMTL. The first unit was somewhat simple, but all the other units combined to give me a knock-out sucker punch. I did get my back with the last 2 units, though… I seem to have got the hang of them. If I can prepare at least 6 units satisfactorily, I’ll be happy to get in the 70s for this subject.
• Analog Communication : Ah, my subject . I’ve liked it from the beginning, and we had a great lecturer. The only small bump in the road is that I missed a couple of important classes, and he hasn’t fully completed the syllabus. Still, I hope with the right preparation, the 80s should be very difficult. With a little (or maybe a lot of) luck, maybe even the higher 80s.
• Control Structures : The last time this lecturer taught us, he did a brilliant job but it wasn’t very exam-oriented teaching… we all ended up getting low marks. This time, however, he’s confident that we’ll get good marks in this subject. He’s completed about 95% of the syllabus, I’ve understood every single concept in this class, and we have 3 holidays to prepare for it. Things are looking good. I’m hoping I can score maximum marks in this one. Maybe even >90%?

And so, there you are… my pre-exam report. I will be logging during the exams and posting updates. Weeks later, when the result is out, I’ll let you know whether my predictions were correct or waaaay off target. In the meantime, enjoy your popcorn and watch this space… this space right here… keep watching…. (sucker )

*Note: All predicted marks are highly optimistic predictions. I hope I get that much, because if I don’t, I’d skin myself alive.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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And today, look what site(s) I found linking back to me (I’ve kept a link back to my site by default in the theme. So anyone using my theme without removing that link would be linking back to me… so basically, this is a small list of sites which are using my theme on their blogs)  :

All of a sudden, I think I should have removed that linkback from the footer

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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